The Ties That Bind
by Bons Baisers
Summary: When a young witch claiming to be Ban's sister reveals a prophecy naming Ban as an apocolyptic Destroyer, the Get Backers become entangled in a world of witch-hunters, demons, and magic as they struggle to find a way to protect the people they love most.
1. In Search of a Smoke

Not my world, just my playground.

**In Search of A Smoke**

Damn, he needed a smoke.

Who the hell had thought it was a good idea to ban smoking from hospital campuses, anyway? Didn't they realize that in stressful situations – like those likely to crop up in hospital waiting rooms – people needed a fucking cigarette?

His hand hurt, and he cringed as he realized that his death grip on the arm of his chair had left an indelible handprint around the steel. Quickly laying Ginji's green vest over the arm to cover the damage, which he had neither the cash nor the inclination to pay for, he scowled at the unoffending piece of clothing.

That idiot.

He was so damn selfless, so damn noble. And if it didn't kill Ginji in the next twenty-four hours, Ban was positive his own aggravation with it would be the death of him.

It was supposed to be a routine job – get the stolen vial back. But since Hevn had been the one to bring it to their attention, they'd been pretty certain that somewhere along the way, there would be a few snags. To be fair, Hevn hadn't known the real dangers of the assignment – her employers hadn't dared release the truth, even to their own negotiator.

Four days prior, a vial containing a 'hazardous material' had been stolen from a bioengineering company based in Osaka. The thieves were suspected to have fled to Tokyo. Embarrassed about the breach in security, the company had chosen to hire private retrievers to handle the matter quietly.

What no one had bothered to tell Hevn – and, consequently, the Get Backers – was that the thieves were part of a North Korean terrorist organization and that the 'hazardous material' they had stolen was in fact a deadly, biologically engineered virus. If he'd known that, he wouldn't have touched the case with a ten foot pole. Firstly, it was way, way too big an assignment to tackle, unless one had the backing of a government agency. Secondly, there was no reason an artificially designed virus should have been developed anywhere in Japan – certainly no reason it should have been kept outside a government-sponsored disease control center. Unless the experimentation itself had been a covert government operation, in which case the government would be relying on its own resources to retrieve it.

No, there had been a lot of loose ends. A private entity in Japan was developing biological weapons, and one of them had been stolen by terrorists. And Hevn had walked herself and the Get Backers right into the middle of it.

Ban had dealt with it, of course. There was a whole city block in Tokyo that was probably still burning, but the fire was about all he could distinctly remember. Ginji had gone down, and Ban couldn't recall much that had happened after that.

Threadspool had been there, somehow, and he wouldn't let him touch Ginji. He had forced him wait for so-called professionals in orange coveralls and masks to take him away, and, before they arrived, had relied on his strings to pull Ginji's body away from the ever-spreading fire. Looking down at the burns on his hands, his own injuries suddenly demanded his attention, throbbing angrily beneath his burnt skin. The other one, the hanger-on, he'd tried to get Ban to let him bandage the burns. Ban had cursed him and walked away, and even now refused to look at Ginji's assorted Kings and friends who had gathered in the waiting room.

He must have looked absolutely pathetic, if even Fuyuki couldn't summon the hostility to blame him for Ginji's predicament.

Not that he could have argued the point. No, he knew exactly whose fault it was that Ginji was lying in some cold white hospital bed, sick, alone, probably dreaming up some ridiculous fantasy or other, probably something involving ice cream or rainbows or unicorns or something equally inane…

Ban suddenly couldn't catch his breath, and he thrust himself up from his chair, knocking Ginji's vest aside and frightening the old lady next to him. Across the room, he felt Hevn's eyes flicker up at him and quickly fall to the floor again.

Oh, hell. It wasn't her fault. After picking up the vest, he strode over to stand beside her.

"Stop that, Hevn. You didn't know." He couldn't make his voice any gentler; it would have broken.

"I should have guessed – I did guess…" Her voice faltered.

"I could have turned around and walked away as soon as I realized what we were dealing with. I didn't. Not your fault," he repeated shortly. "Did they contact you?"

"Not since they first called to tell me they were working on an antivirus." Her voice cracked with exhaustion, with fear. "I've called them three times since then, but no one will pick up."

Shido, who sat two chairs down from Hevn, swore under his breath. Madoka had positioned herself at his feet, so she could be closer to Mozart, and she settled an unobtrusive hand on his knee to comfort him. Some of the strain disappeared from his shoulders. He didn't look at Ban.

"Ginji-kun is going to be okay, isn't he?" Natsumi asked, face shining with tears. It was the fourth time she'd asked, and, like every time before, no one felt like lying to her. Rena settled an arm around her, but said nothing.

It would have been better if there were anything he could do – anything, even if it was just beating up the bad guys, even if it was just searching aimlessly for an antivirus.

But there wasn't one. The only stock of it had been in the warehouse in Tokyo, and every bit of it had burned to the ground. And Ban knew the odds against developing a new one in time were phenomenal.

He handed Ginji's vest to Hevn. "Watch this."

With everyone's eyes boring holes in the back of his head, he abandoned Ginji's friends and left the waiting room.

He'd intended to make his way across the street, where he could light up, for one, but also where he could get away from that awful antiseptic smell and those damned people who cared more than he wanted to know, more than they liked to admit. But as he walked down the corridor toward the main entrance of the hospital, a small white sign with engraved, navy blue letters indicated the twin doors that led to the hospital chapel. Much to his own consternation, he found himself hesitating outside the simple room. Shrugging, not one to question his own instincts, he stepped inside.

There was no way to identify the chapel as belonging to one religion or another. A single row of pews with an aisle along either side faced a stained glass window portraying a rising sun – or, Ban thought with a chill, a sunset. There were no crosses, no icons, no Buddhas. A pair of small bookshelves on the back wall between the doors held a few Bibles and a Qur'an, along with a number of Judaic, Buddhist, Hindu, and Shinto religious texts. Despite himself, Ban smiled a bit, thinking he would have liked to have met the person responsible for this room.

Then he frowned, because he couldn't think of any religion he'd like to be attached to that welcomed witches or cursed people, and he started to retreat from the chapel.

A small woman with dark hair blocked his way, and a sudden jolt of recognition shivered down his spine. Her eyes widened slightly, evidently in surprise, and he saw with a shock that her eyes were not the same color; one was a brilliant blue, the other an equally vibrant lavender.

"Midou Ban-san?" There was something familiar about her low, lilting voice as well, but he couldn't place it.

"Can I help you?" he asked curtly, in no mood for idle chit-chat.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, but we must discuss that later. For the moment, I am here to help you." She held up a syringe full of a viscous green liquid.

Scarcely thinking, he lunged at her, straining for the antivirus, only to find she wasn't where he thought she was.

"You need not fight me for it, Midou-san. I came to administer it to your friend myself. We shall work out an appropriate payment later."

Somehow she had appeared before the stained glass window, an easy fourteen feet away, but he hadn't seen the movement. He ran his eyes over her slight frame, lingering on her oddly mismatched eyes, searching for something to indicate falsity, but detected nothing.

"The virus that has infected your friend will reproduce in another hour, and will have mutated sufficiently to resist this particular antivirus." She'd taken on a pointed tone, and he nodded mutely, acknowledging the need for haste.

"I suppose he has been secreted away in some kind of quarantine area?"

Again Ban nodded, still not quite believing his ears.

"Typical cover-up." She shrugged. "Do you know where he is?"

"He's on the top floor, under heavy guard." At last his voice acquiesced to his wishes.

"Is that going to be a problem?" she asked with a slight smile.

"No."

And of course it wasn't. Guns could be dangerous, but only if the people aiming them at you were faster on the trigger than you were on your feet, and so far Ban hadn't met anyone who could aim and shoot more quickly than he could remove himself from their line of sight.

Getting to the top story should have been troublesome, as the elevator required a pass code to stop on restricted floors. However, she pressed the key for the top floor and entered a few numbers on the keypad, and the elevator dutifully brought them to the thirty-eighth floor. Two guards shouted when they emerged from the compartment; he went for one and she for the other, and then she had disappeared. Moving down the corridors toward the quarantine wing, he was assaulted by perhaps another dozen guards. He left them slumped against the walls and was curiously unsurprised to find another ten or so laid out on the floor. She beat him to the quarantine wing and was scanning the patient register that hung on a clipboard outside the sealed metal door.

"Stay here." She reached for the door, but Ban grabbed the handle first.

"You know there's some kind of alarm connected to this, right?" he demanded. "And there's no way you're leaving me behind, lady. I don't have any reason to trust you."

"The alarm has been dealt with," she answered, a steely note in her tone. "And unless you have suddenly become an expert on precautionary measures pertaining to biosafety level four agents, I suggest you remain here. I did not bring two doses of the antivirus, and even if I had, there are more patients in here, with other, equally dangerous and contagious conditions."

Unhappy but helpless to argue the point, he scowled and rested against the wall, silently deferring to her.

"I will not be long." So saying, she pulled open the door and disappeared behind it. Ban dropped into a crouch beside the wall. The Get Backer's capacity for adjusting to change and his ability to adapt to unstable situations constituted a great part of his battle genius, but even he felt a little overwhelmed by the sudden alteration of his circumstances. One minute he had been wallowing in guilt, the next he was standing outside the quarantine wing of Tokyo's finest hospital, waiting for a total stranger to tell him Ginji was going to be alright.

Having a moment to himself, he allowed his thoughts to reform the woman in his mind. Nothing about her figure caught his attention, other than that it was fine-boned and attractive, so he tried picturing her face, tried to capture whatever it was that had struck him as familiar.

Heart-shaped, broad forehead, narrow, pointed chin. Pert nose, upturned just a little. Generous mouth, rather thin-lipped. Fine eyebrows, severely angled over intense eyes with heavy black lashes.

It was the eyes, had to be, because just imagining them felt like a blow to the stomach. He tried to see them more clearly in his mind. After a moment, he stood up and sought his reflection in the shining steel door.

If both of her eyes had been the vivid blue of her left, they would have been identical to his.

Suddenly the door swung open, and caught Ban full in the face, sending him sprawling backward.

The woman with his eyes frowned, rather like a school teacher who had been presented with a naughty child. "Whatever are you doing on the floor, Midou-san?"

"Who are you?" he demanded, disregarding her question.

The frown faded. "It would be best to retire to less public quarters before posing that particular question, Midou-san." She offered a hand to help him up. He ignored it and clambered to his feet.

"There is a bar on sixth. Once you have laid your fears for Amano-san to rest, do come. I will be there until eight o'clock this evening." She gestured to the elevator down the hall. "Some haste is probably in order," she commented, and allowed him to lead the way.

She exited the elevator cab first, and by the time Ban followed her, she was nowhere to be seen.

Leaving the elevator and the waiting room and the quarantine wing behind, Ban ambled along the hallway to the main entrance of the hospital. It faced the corner of two streets, and, fortunately for Ban, sat on the very edge of the hospital campus. The digital sign across the street blinked the temperature and time. 17.7 degrees Celsius. 10:07.

He crossed with a small crowed of other pedestrians and stood beneath the blinking sign, staring up at the top floor of the hospital, remembering his reflection in the steel, and the face that had materialized seconds later.

Then he lit up.


	2. Bloody Monday

Not my world, just my playground.

**Bloody Monday**

After leaving the gritty streets behind for the immaculate crispness of the hospital waiting room, Ban crumpled his now-empty box of Marlboros and lobbed it at the waste bin, carefully pitching it just over Shido's head.

Shido bristled, and Madoka stroked the knee, which, curiously, her hand seemed never to have left.

"You must know something we don't, Ban-san," she said softly, a faint smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "You're certainly in a better mood."

"Ginji's going to be alright," he answered, shrugging. "I took care of it." He laid a very light emphasis on the word 'I,' mostly to irritate Shido. Were he more honest with himself, he might have admitted that he wanted to remind them that he was Ginji's partner, and entirely capable of looking out for the hapless former Thunder Emperor, _despite_ the unfortunate events of the previous evening.

Kazuki closed his eyes, and the very slight movement of his lips informed Ban that the string-user had bitten his tongue. Juubei turned an ear toward Ban. "Just what, exactly, did you do, Midou?"

"I took care of it." He spoke the words as definitively as he could, leaving no one any room to question him.

"Midou-san?" A pretty nurse approached tentatively. Each head snapped up to the sound of her voice, and she reddened a bit at the unexpected attention. "It seems as if your partner, Amano-san, is going to recover."

"That so?" Ban asked, just a bit smugly.

A look of consternation crossed her face. "Evidently someone broke into the quarantine wing and administered an antivirus. Without proper knowledge of quarantine procedures, they could have contracted any number of deadly diseases." Apparently she realized that was an inappropriate thing to say, as it damaged the hospital's image and could conceivably began a panic; she flushed and cleared her throat. "He will need to stay for observation for several days, at least. The virus caused some serious damage to his lungs, and though his… unique… physiology should allow for a full recovery, he should remain still and quiet for awhile longer."

"Can we see him?" Natsumi asked uncertainly.

"As soon as he has been moved out of the quarantine wing, you may visit him during normal visiting hours, but no more than three people at a time may sit with him. Alright?" She looked them over expectantly, waiting for any remaining questions to be asked.

"Who broke in?" Shido cast a sidelong look at Ban, who put his nose in the air and crossed his arms.

"Security thought it was a brother and sister duo. Amano was unconscious, so he didn't see anything." Straightening a little, she smiled and said, "Let me know if you need anything, alright?" She walked away.

"Brother and sister?" Hevn looked at Ban curiously. "I know most of your contacts, Ban-kun. I don't remember a brother and sister partnership."

"You don't know half my contacts, Hevn," Ban retorted, carefully hiding how much the nurse's description had unsettled him. "Besides, half of that 'duo' was me, and I don't have a sister."

"So who's the girl?"

"None of your business." He took a seat opposite Hevn and stared at her, daring her to question him further.

She didn't. Kazuki had opened his eyes, and now regarded Ban speculatively, but if he found anything amiss, he didn't say so. A painful silence hung in the space between Ban and Ginji's other friends; to ease his own nerves, Ban watched them all carefully, weighing each uncomfortable shift, each averted glance, each bitten lip, drinking up the words no one was speaking.

Shido sat lowering at the Get Backer, angry firstly that Ban's carelessness had endangered Ginji, angry again that Ban had been the one to help the former king of Lowertown, rather than his older, more reliable comrades. Madoka's presence only softened the edges of that rage, and Ban found himself curiously shrinking away from that primitive, feral wrath.

Natsumi scarcely seemed to register the tension in the air, and though Ban could see that Rena did recognize the hostility, she pushed it aside as unimportant and unworthy of her attention.. Ginji's wellbeing occupied the thoughts of the two girls, and their selfless concern touched Ban more than he liked to admit. Ginji gave continually of himself, of his boundless optimism and empathy and sense of purpose, playing friend and guide to anyone who needed him, often gaining nothing but a half-trustworthy friendship in return. This assessment was a bit unfair, of course, but his partner had nearly died, and Ban felt rather disinclined toward generosity. So knowing that Natsumi and Rena's good hearts wanted nothing but Ginji's welfare pleased him.

Kazuki and Juubei were composed as always. Probably they had never really believed the Thunder Emperor could die. He could see the wheels spinning in Kazuki's head, lining up the facts as he knew them, pulling what outside information he could into the lineup, gauging Ban in precisely the same manner as Ban was weighing everyone else.

Hevn wanted to know about the girl. He couldn't blame her. He wanted to know about the girl himself.

And Paul… Paul hadn't said a word, not a single word. And who knew what he was thinking anyway, behind those dark glasses? Ban didn't trouble himself much about Paul. His father's old friend kept his own council, and that suited Ban perfectly.

After a several anxious hours, the nurse returned and invited "only three, please," to come and visit Ginji, though she warned them that he had been seriously ill and would probably be fast asleep by the time they got to his room.

Ban, Hevn, and Paul followed the pretty nurse into an elevator car and out of it again when they reached the sixth floor. Paul caught Hevn's wrist and tugged on it briefly, catching the reflection of her eyes in his glasses. She nodded, and they waited silently in the hall as Ban stepped into the hospital room.

Someone had turned the lights out. Ban frowned and flipped the switch. Ginji had once admitted to preferring to sleep with the lights on, though not because he feared the dark. As some children need white noise or a favorite blanket to fall asleep with, Ginji found the "feel" of electricity coursing above and around him a comforting sensation.

"Ban-chan?" Ban hid a wince as the words clawed their way out of his partner's throat, a tearing, rasping sound.

"Shut up," Ban said, pitching his voice low. "If it hurts to talk, don't."

Big brown eyes fluttered open, framed by blue-black bruises. "Ban-chan…"

"Didn't I tell you to shut up?"

Ginji shook his head weakly. "I'm sorry I broke the little bottle, Ban-chan. I was –" A series of wet, bloody coughs broke into his apology.

"Don't apologize for something stupid like that," Ban said evenly, handing his partner a wad of tissues to wipe the blood away with. "If you're going to worry about something, worry about sticking us with all these damn hospital bills."

Ginji swallowed painfully, and a wet shine appeared in his sickness-dimmed eyes, and Ban's cool demeanor warbled just a bit. "You punished yourself, you know, cutting yourself on the broken vial," he said off-handedly. "So you can quit looking at me like I'm gonna be mad at you. Nothing I could have done to you would have been as bad as this."

"I just…" Ginji doubled over, coughing again, turning to face away from Ban. His knees jerked up to his chest, and the whole bed shook with the force of his coughing.

"Don't worry about it!" Ban snapped, loud enough to be sure Ginji could hear him.

When Ginji could breathe freely again, he seemed too exhausted even to move, and he didn't turn over to look at his partner.

"I have to take care of some things, Ginji," Ban said quietly, after a few minutes of silence. The back of Ginji's head dipped slightly in acknowledgement. "I told the monkey trainer and the thread spool to stick around, though, alright?" Another slight bob of blonde spikes.

Ban rose to leave, to tell Paul and Hevn they could come in, to tell them Ginji was asleep, because if they thought he was they'd leave him alone. And maybe he would get some rest.

There was a stiffness in Ginji's shoulders that Ban couldn't ignore, so he paused by the door and, without turning around, said, "You know we couldn't have given that vial back anyway, Ginji, even if our employer had genuinely intended to pay us. So it's a stupid thing to feel bad about."

The strain he sensed didn't disappear, so he waited a moment longer by the door.

"I'm sorry I made you worry, Ban-chan," Ginji said hoarsely.

Ban smiled a little at the door, feeling the tension evaporate. "Feel better, Ginji."

"He's sleeping," he informed Paul and Hevn, pushing past them. The lie sprang easily to his lips as he entered the hall. Paul probably knew he was lying, but he wouldn't tell. He knew what it was like to have an injured partner.

Sure enough, a small smile appeared at the corners of Paul's mouth once Hevn's back was turned, and when her heels clattered loudly on the glaring white tiles, he shushed her with a sidelong glance at Ban. Ban returned the glance but not the smile.

He found the 360 with yet another ticket under the wipers; evidently he had parked in an employee only parking lot. Which would explain the red, wooden bar he'd crashed through in his panic to get Ginji into the hospital. Crumpling the ticket, he tossed it in the back and slid into the driver's seat to turn the key in the ignition.

The bar that the girl had mentioned was on the other side of Tokyo, but Ban found it with no difficulty. He pulled up beside it, for once taking care to park carefully, reluctant to chance having the car towed. If something unexpectedly went south with Ginji, he wanted to be able to return to the hospital in a hurry.

Her almost-blonde ash brown hair stuck out like a sore thumb at a bar full of black heads, and he saw immediately that she'd rested her purse on the barstool at her right, presumably reserving the seat for him. For several minutes, he watched her nurse what he took to be a rum and coke. Observation constituted a great part of his so-called "battle genius," and he took the time to carefully file away every minute detail he could pick up from the back of her head.

Her hair fell just past the small of her back in layered, sculpted arcs. The shortest layers fell just beneath her shoulders, not counting the similarly sculpted bangs that parted in the middle and framed her heart-shaped face. She obviously had some western blood; like Ban himself, her coloring was fairer than that of most Japanese. Dark khaki corduroy jeans rode comfortably at her hips, and a simple white cotton blouse had been neatly tucked inside. A white tank peeked over the top of the blouse's top fastened button, three buttons down from a perfectly starched collar. Beside her on the bar, a casual denim jacket lay neatly folded in half. To the untrained eye, she exuded classic style, but Ban recognized the high quality and double stitching in her clothing almost immediately. Whatever it was she did, it required alternately cool professionalism and hard work.

So far as personal adornment went, she wore only a pair of silver studs in her earlobes and a single silver ring on the index finger of her right hand. If she went about armed, Ban couldn't detect the telltale bulge of a concealed weapon.

She didn't move enough, didn't fidget or tap her feet or look around, and Ban picked up on this after several minutes of watching her. Sighing, he realized why her mannerisms seemed so unnatural.

"When did you realize I was here?" He handed her the purse off the stool she had reserved for him.

"I knew the moment you walked in the door." She glanced at him long enough to take the purse. Looking away, a half-smile pulled at her mouth. "Did you find whatever it was you were looking for?"

"Only more questions," Ban replied, somewhat sourly, irked that she had detected his presence.

"So ask them."

"Who are you?" Her smile fell.

"Would it trouble you too greatly to leave that question a while longer? You've had ample time to observe me; I would like the opportunity to assess you before handing out my name."

"You know mine," he pointed out. "Doesn't seem fair, but whatever." He shrugged, willing to play along for the time being. "Answer me this instead: how did you get the antivirus? The entire stock was supposed to be in the warehouse that burned down."

"I happened to be at the warehouse and saw that your friend had infected himself with SR-419. As your formidable talents distracted security, the antivirus was practically abandoned, and I was easily able to retrieve it."

Ban pursed his lips, reasoning that he could ask about her experiences in the warehouse, and her reasons for being there at all, later. For the moment, he had other concerns. "You have the other syringes as well?"

"I have one more. The others I distributed among the appropriate authorities," she answered candidly.

"You're very forthcoming." Suspicious by nature, the girl's ready answers and seeming ingenuousness sounded warning bells in Ban's head.

"I prefer to be honest when possible." She raised her glass to her lips, but paused before drinking. "It is exceedingly difficult to lie to people who expect duplicity. Harder still deceive those who believe you personally to be dishonest. Three or four parts truth to one part lie, and most people will swallow the whole thing."

That amused him a little, though he remained wary. "But you do lie.

_That_ seemed to amuse her, for she smiled a little herself. "When necessary, Midou-san."

"Has it been necessary to lie today?" he asked bluntly.

She regarded him thoughtfully, mismatched eyes bemused. "Thus far, no. Though I make no promises in regard to the future."

He eyed her suspiciously, and deeming the answer sufficient, posed another question. "Why did you help me?"

"The answer to that is closely tied to your first question, which I declined to answer. Suffice it to say that you and I have held an enemy in common and now we also share a common purpose. I required the antivirus for other, unrelated matters; chance, or perhaps fate, permitted me to use it for your benefit. Regardless, I am positive that we would have eventually crossed paths. This meeting was inevitable, Snake Bearer."

Ban's heart skipped a beat, but he didn't allow the shock to register on his face. "I think its time we go back to that first question, lady." A dangerous note had entered his voice, and he did nothing to conceal it.

"Perhaps you're right," she agreed, unconcernedly. Reaching into her purse, she withdrew a stack of papers that had been folded in half and stapled at the upper left corner.

"When you registered for your retriever's license," she said, "you were administered a drug test and a background check, and your fingerprints, retinal patterns, and genetic data were put on file in Japan's official records. Correct?" She raised her brows, and he nodded a careful, wary confirmation. "This is you?" She slid one stack of papers across the bar, and a black-and-white photograph of his own face stared up at him. He flipped through the pages quickly and set them aside.

"Believe it or not, lady, this stuff I'm pretty familiar with." Wordlessly, she handed him the other stack. The formatting of her official records seemed a little different from his, but hers predated his by two years, according to the date that appeared in the footer of every page, and that probably accounted for the dissimilarity.

Adorlee Aurore St. Julian. He looked up at her incredulously. "French?"

She shook her head, but offered no explanation. Returning to the papers, he found curious blanks in a number of places. No birth date was listed, and no parents. He looked up at her again expectantly.

A grim smile touched her generous mouth. "I was abandoned as an infant. That is a story you shall soon be asking to hear, I assure you."

He continued through the pages and discovered she was a registered protector, which probably also accounted for the difference in the formatting of their papers.

"You don't have any fingerprints?" Clipped to the page that ought to have displayed the spread of both hands' fingertips, there was instead a notice explaining that the subject had no fingerprints to offer, and that handprints had been accepted instead.

She turned her palms upward for him to examine. Where swirling patterns of minute ridges ought to have been, there was instead smooth white skin.

Scars.

"Surgically removed? Why?"

"Because in Japan it is common practice to fingerprint children not long after their birth, and the individuals who found me didn't know whether I had been fingerprinted. It would have been bad for them if someone could identify me. I actually do not have toe-prints, either," she offered, still smiling bleakly.

He decided to follow that later, and turned the page to find that her retinal patterns and genetic information were intact.

Frowning, he studied the STR profile that served as her genetic identifier in Japan's records. Reading over the numbers, secretly pleased he remembered as much about DNA as he did, he stopped short about halfway through the table.

Flipping through the other stack of papers, he found his own STR profile.

Adorlee – if that was her real name – turned away.

"This isn't possible," Ban said flatly. "Don't fuck with me, lady."

"The hall of records is around the block, Midou-san," she answered quietly. "That is why I chose this meeting place."

"But why – " He stopped himself. "How?" he demanded.

"I was not entirely certain of the facts myself until four days ago. Midou-san…" Her voice trailed off, and she seemed distinctly unhappy.

Ban wasn't feeling especially chipper himself. "What?" he asked shortly.

"Your mother…was she superstitious?"

There was a painful, awkward silence. "Extremely."

"I was found in a dumpster behind a maternity ward outside Tokyo, twenty one years ago come this December," she told him, looking into her now-empty glass. "Supposedly there were fingernail marks across my face, across my eyes."

Ban blinked, and could have slapped himself for being so slow. Heterochromia, a condition in which one's eyes appear to be different colors, had once been seen as a mark of the devil, right up there with double pupils and extra nipples. A wave of compassion threatened to overwhelm him; he forced it down, along with the memories Adorlee's question raised. He couldn't afford to pity someone he couldn't trust.

"Who found you?" he asked after a moment, after he had collected himself.

Her grim smile resurfaced. "I told you we had a common enemy, did I not? My would-be rescuers belonged to an organization known as Brain Trust."

Ban closed his eyes against what he knew was coming.

"They are fond of experimentation, the members of Brain Trust," she said, not bothering to conceal the bitterness in her voice. "But that was long ago, and Brain Trust is now little more than a bad memory. I thank you for that."

Burning with questions, he opened his mouth to ask her when she had escaped Brain Trust, but she shook her head. Raising her watch, she showed him the time. It was 4:30 in the afternoon.

"Visiting hours end at six o'clock," she said with a small smile. "You should look in on your partner. Amano-san seems like a good person."

He studied her smile a moment, wincing inwardly when it became uncertain and tentative. "I've never known better," he said finally, allowing the truth to break the silence. She nodded and got to her feet.

Feeling like a fool, but not really sure as to the appropriate manner to assume toward a long-lost sibling, he took her denim jacket from the bar and held it open for her. Her brows knit in puzzlement, but a pleased smile played on her lips, so he figured he'd done the right thing. She shrugged into the jacket and thanked him, in her typical, wordy, formal manner.

"You could come with me," he said, affectedly nonchalant as he held the front door open for her.

"I…" She bit her lip, and then exhaled sharply and nodded. "I would like that very much, Midou-san."

"The invincible Midou Ban-sama," he corrected her. "Or Ban-san. Or just Ban. But not Midou-san.

"Otouto?" she asked with a smile.

He grimaced. "Why would you assume you're the older twin?"

"I am the elder. Your father signed your birth certificate, and that would have been done minutes after your birth. I would have had to have been born first, or he would have known about me. If he had, things probably would have turned out quite differently." Something faintly mischievous sparkled in her eyes. "You know," she mused, "I rather liked 'Ban-chan.' Your friend is very clever."

"Absolutely not."

Evidently she picked up on the lack of heat in the words, because the mischief didn't fade. "Very well, Ban-kun," she conceded. He scowled a little, but she didn't offer to change it again. Which was okay. It sounded more respectful coming from her than Hevn or Akabane, so he didn't really care.

She got into the 360, into Ginji's seat, and fastened the safety belt. Climbing in beside her, he gave her a sidelong look as he pulled out into the street. "What should I call you?"

"'Adorlee' has served well enough these past ten years; I see no reason to change it."

He nodded, but before he could reply, he was assaulted with the sudden knowledge that Ginji was in danger. Gunning the engine, he began to weave in and out of traffic, suddenly oblivious to the girl beside him.

"Midou-san?" She took hold of the back of his chair, bracing herself. "Midou!"

"Ginji," he ground out, "is in trouble." Two of the car's wheels came off the ground as he hit a right turn. His heart threatened to pound out of his breast, and his whole body broke out in a cold sweat. He wasn't going to make it in time.

She pursed her lips. "Pull over."

He didn't deign to answer, and she repeated herself. "Pull over, Midou-san."

He forced the gas all the way to the floor.

"Ban-kun." Reluctantly, his eyes slid toward Adorlee. She seemed completely unperturbed. "Pull over. There are better means for transporting ourselves quickly."

Cursing, not sure whether to believe her or not, he conceded. Pulling the car into a fire lane, and be damned to the ticket, he looked at her expectantly. Her eyes seemed to shift color, just enough so that both became a remarkable shade of violet blue.

And then he wasn't sure what happened. He felt himself racing forward, felt his legs pumping, his arms swinging, felt himself climbing, felt rough stone beneath his fingertips. But he saw nothing, and he knew he hadn't caused his body to move.

And then, all at once, he was standing in Ginji's hospital room. Ginji lay unconscious on the white bed. Adorlee was on her knees, gasping for breath. And the danger he had sensed stood poised over Ginji, dressed in doctor's scrubs.

"Sir, I'm just –" Ban vaulted over the bed, fist raised, and the "doctor" pulled a vicious-looking knife from somewhere within the green garments.

"You're just leaving," Ban informed him coldly. The other man launched himself at Ban, who neatly sidestepped the clumsy attack and aimed a blow at the back of the man's head as he went by. The "doctor" crashed against the wall, beneath the window, but to his credit, immediately got to his feet again and charged a second time, this time holding his knife as far out in front of him as he possibly could. Ban caught the man's wrist in a Snake Bite, and the knife clattered harmlessly to the floor.

"Who sent you?" Ban demanded, kicking the knife away.

The "doctor" trembled and fell to his knees. "I… I can't tell you!"

Dropping the wrist, Ban bunched a wad of green scrubs in his right hand and pulled the man to his feet. He pressed his face directly into the other man's, so that their eyes were inches apart. "I won't ask you again."

"They'll kill me!"

"Not if I kill you first." It was an empty threat, Ban had no intention of killing the low-man on the totem pole. But it had the desired effect.

"I can't!" He began to blink furiously, and struggled futilely against Ban's hands. "I didn't! I didn't tell him! Please, I didn't!"

Something hit Ban full in the chest and face, and he distinctly tasted blood on his lips. He staggered back. A massive, bloody chunk of bone and hair and brain had affixed itself to his shirt – the "doctor's" head had exploded. Before he could quite process the amount of gore that dripped and oozed around the hospital room, he could sense Ginji waking up behind him. Frantic to hide the carnage from his partner, he scanned the room for some kind of towel or blanket he could drape over Ginji's eyes.

It didn't prove necessary. Adorlee, though still breathing heavily, had managed to reach Ginji's side. Covered in blood spatter, though she'd escaped the worst of the gore, she lowered the tips of her fingers to Ginji's forehead and whispered something under her breath. Ginji's breathing evened and slowed. He began to cough a little, but Adorlee turned him on his side and the coughing eased.

Ban locked the door and stripped out of his ruined shirts. Then he turned to Adorlee, who sat silently by Ginji in the single chair the room offered, evidently undisturbed by the blood and viscera that surrounded her.

"What," he asked her quietly, nauseous, angry, and not a little frightened, "What in _hell_ was that?"


	3. I Approach these Questions Unwillingly

Not my world; just my playground.

A/N: The title of this chapter comes from a quote by the Roman historian and author Titus Livius. The whole quote reads: "I approach these questions unwillingly, as they are sore subjects, but no cure can be effected without touching upon and handling them.

**I Approach these Questions Unwillingly**

Adorlee sat absolutely still, watching him, appraising him. Gooey strings of blood stained her clothes and her face, but she ignored them, weighing Ban, deciding what to tell him.

Ban, in turn, watched Adorlee. Questions raced through his head, questions about her, questions about the detonated doctor and what he had wanted with Ginji, questions, questions. He stared her down, keeping his face absolutely impassive, and finally, she surrendered.

"Ban-kun," she said, "I would borrow a little of your strength, if you will allow it. I confess I am a little drained from our run and from keeping your partner unawares, but I would like to clean this up." She turned frank eyes up to him. "I do not care for blood."

Rage threatened to boil over, fueled by impatience, but he forced it down and with a sharp shrug informed her she could do as she pleased.

She nodded. "Think about white, Ban-kun. Just white."

Fairly certain he knew what was coming, but too desperate for answers to argue, he closed his eyes and tried to clear his mind completely. He felt a light pull at his spirit, and when he opened his eyes, the corpse and everything that had erupted from it had disappeared. Even the blood on his skin and clothing had vanished.

"A witch." He didn't bother to make it a question.

She smiled faintly, pleased with his directness, or perhaps with his quickness, but a queer, bitter flame flared in her oddly-matched eyes. "The first witch of the twenty-first century."

Ban slumped against the wall and ended up sitting on the floor. "Of course it would be a witch come to help me," he muttered, mostly to himself. "Because you can't ever fucking trust a witch."

"Says the man with the forked tongue and the lying eyes," she remarked, a bit dryly.

He rubbed irritably at his 'lying' eyes and then turned a sour look on Adorlee. "Touché."

She was waiting for him to ask. "Let's try this again," he said. "What the hell just happened here? Who was that person?" He flung an arm at the space the vanished corpse had occupied.

She rose from chair beside Ginji's bed and seated herself beside Ban on the floor. Drawing her knees up to her chest, she stared at the white tiles. When she spoke, her voice was very quiet and her demeanor utterly serious. "He was a votary, Ban-kun."

Ban's mind went numb. A votary. They were insignificant, in and of themselves, but votaries meant inquisitors. And inquisitors meant…

"Praetors." Somewhere, a praetor had cast the spell to destroy the votary, for even thinking of betraying his inquisitor. The nausea of the slaughter hit Ban anew, and he dropped his head back against the wall. "Did it follow you here, to me?" He suddenly felt very weary.

"No." She shook her head, and her long, sculpted tresses brushed his bare arms, raising gooseflesh where they touched him. "No, I followed it."

She wrapped her arms about her legs, and he was struck by how very small she seemed, in that childish position. He looked away. "Following praetors is a good way to get yourself killed."

She said nothing, and he let it pass. Anyone who actually wanted to locate a demon had good reason to do so. Unless they were mad. He put that from his mind. She was a mystery, yet, Adorlee was. But crazy? He didn't think so.

"So," Ban said aloud, "it was coming for me."

She nodded, not looking at him.

"Brilliant. Just brilliant." He smashed his right fist into the wall behind him, but the gesture didn't make him feel any better. He thought of something else. "Why would an inquisitor send a votary after Ginji?"

Her eyes slid toward him, and he perceived a sudden tenseness about her. "It matters not at all," she said after a moment's thought. "It did not get him. And it shall not."

It. Not the inquisitor, not the votary; those were people. The praetor alone was an "it." His blood ran cold, and he repeated the question.

She laid her head against the wall beside his and held his eyes in a steady gaze. "I have no wish to hurt you with might haves and maybes."

"I have to know."

She regarded him silently, and after several agonizing moments, nodded. "I suppose you do, at that." Rising to her feet, she stood beside Ginji's bed and touched his chest. "The votary's knife would have carved Amano-san's heart out, had we arrived any later than we did. He would have devoured the heart, and then called for a praetor, on orders from his inquisitor. The praetor would consume the votary, and use part of what he devoured – Amano-san's flesh and the votary's soul – to weave an animation spell on Amano-san's corpse. The flesh remembers, the soul governs, and thus a duplicate of your friend could be fashioned, one possessing full knowledge of Amano-san's habits, personality, and memories. A perfect replica, until the moment he reaches out to destroy you." She spoke the words quickly, as if by their speed she could somehow mitigate their terrible import.

"A dead soul possessing an animated corpse." The thought reviled him, and waves of nausea nearly caused him to shudder. "They didn't think I would recognize the difference?" He looked at Ginji, whose chest shuddered beneath Adorlee's hand in its attempt to draw air into its damaged lungs. Something ugly welled inside of him; he quashed it and kept his composure, but with difficulty. He got up to stand beside her.

"The praetors do not care one way or the other. For the opportunity to devour human flesh and souls, they will manufacture any spell requested of them for the inquisitor who promises to satiate their needs. It is the inquisitors who derive pleasure from these games." She stared at Ginji with a peculiar kind of sadness. "I have known inquisitors who would have done this, even if they knew with certainty that you would know the votary's mangled, masticated soul for a fake. They do it just to see you suffer the pain of harming the likeness of a friend."

He had been so very young the last time the inquisitors had found him, back before his grandmother had disappeared. And they'd had no time to do more than frighten him before she had arrived, blood and fire in her wake. He had always believed her to be a tough, unfeeling old bird, but it seemed there had been some compassion in her twisted heart, after all. She had obviously shielded him from the worst knowledge of their enemies. Adorlee, however, seemed all too familiar with the ways of the inquisitors, and he told her so.

She sank onto the bed beside Ginji. She was trembling, and Ban realized she was utterly, utterly spent. "Please do not ask me to recount my experiences among the inquisitors, Ban-kun. I recall them every time I lay down to sleep as it is."

"Ginji-kun? It's me, Natsumi." Natsumi's voice hesitated just outside the door. Ban opened his mouth to reply, to send her away, but Adorlee shook her head and pressed a finger to her lips. With her other hand she touched Ginji's throat.

"I'm sorry if you've been waiting a long time, Natsumi-chan," she said. The voice that issued from her mouth, however, was Ginji's. "I'm sorry," she repeated, "but it would be better if you didn't come in right now. I don't want you to worry too much about me, okay?"

"Are you alright, Ginji-kun?" She sounded a little upset, and Ban noted Adorlee's pained wince with interest. It hurt her to lie to the girl outside.

"I'm –" She started to cough, deep, wet coughs that passed well enough for Ginji's.

"I understand, Ginji-kun. I'll come to see you when you're feeling better, kay?" Natsumi, bless her, didn't suspect a thing, and would probably tell everyone else not to bother Ginji tonight.

"That was pretty – hey!" Adorlee pitched forward, her eyes glazed. Ban caught her easily, but held her for a moment before sinking to the floor, carefully supporting her head and shoulders as he knelt.

A thin sheen of sweat covered her pale face, and her breath came in quick, shallow gasps. Whatever little bit of magic she had expended to imitate Ginji's voice cost her everything she had left.

The smallness of her frame struck him again, as her fragile, bony shoulders pressed into him. The limp body that slumped in his arms reminded him uncomfortably of his own body, all hard, flat planes and sharp angles, with not an ounce of flesh to spare. Awake, she seemed self-composed and smoothly professional, but while she lay unconscious, it wasn't difficult to see her for the twenty-year-old girl she truly was.

Now that her eyes had closed, he also noticed how pretty she was. He flushed, wondering how many people had been taken aback by her heterochromia before seeing the beauty of the face those mismatched eyes were set in, embarrassed that he numbered among them. He pushed away the shame and studied her face more intently.

Her skin was smooth and clear, but for a faint scar that ran just beneath her left eye, a smooth cut that followed her cheekbone for perhaps two centimeters. Long, thick lashes kissed her cheeks, the same pale brown color as her hair. Frail wisps of eyebrows disappeared in her disheveled locks. Her face held only traces of her rangy body, in the hard slant of her eyes and the thin, wide mouth; her jaw and brow were fragile, delicate, bridged by soft, round cheeks, a pert nose, and a slightly pointed chin that recalled der Kaiser's and Ban's.

A fire heated in his belly as he realized that her face had probably been bloodied more than once, if she knew Brain Trust and the inquisitors, and the depth of his anger surprised him. He still didn't know her, after all, and although her story about their relationship rang true, it wouldn't be the first time he had been deceived. Witches had their own magic, and he'd seen enough of hers to know that she would rival his grandmother someday.

He wasn't entirely sure how she'd managed to take him along for the ride, but he recognized the method she had used to bring them to the hospital so quickly. It was old magic, powerful magic. His grandmother had called it walking the shadows. Any visible shadow could be connected to any other, she had said, if you knew the right magic. If the shadow were big enough to immerse your own shadow in, you could disappear inside it, and reappear at the foot of the other shadow. He'd only done it once, holding Maria's hand, and had been so violently ill afterward that he'd sworn never to do it again.

That nausea hadn't approached him this time; his sickness arose from the gore after the votary's death. He didn't know what that meant, but he did remember the strange way her eyes had shifted color just before he lost control of his body. Putting that aside as something to ask her about later, he flinched as something in her face tightened in fear and caught his attention.

"Turn away, otouto," she whispered urgently, half-conscious, nearly wrenching out of his grasp. Her body froze, becoming rigid with pain. A single tear slipped from the inside corner of her left eye, sliding along the scar beneath to disappear into her hair. Her eyes flashed open.

And then Ban's world exploded in pain.

He could not breathe; his breast pressed against his lungs with such weight that his ribs creaked under the strain. It was unbearably hot, and rivulets of sweat coursed down his cheeks.

He lay flat on his back. A terrible weight bore down upon him, a crushing, unrelenting pressure. He reached out to Snake Bite whatever had attacked him, and encountered such shooting pain in his right arm that he almost passed out. Straining his eyes sideways, he caught sight of a mangled, ruined arm.

It was small, thin, and childlike. And it was his. But he could not remember what had happened to it.

He tried to speak, to demand where he was, and when he found he hadn't the breath for it, he began to strain against the weight that opposed him.

Rocks?

Had he been caught in some sort of landslide? All over his chest and abdomen, the horrible weight settled, forcing out the little breath remained in his lungs.

A sickeningly sweet odor assaulted him through what air found its way into his nostrils. Beside his bloodied arm, a small, booted foot appeared. He bit his lip to keep from crying out as the heel ground into his damaged shoulder.

"Stop! For God's sake, please! She's just a child!"

"She's a witch." The strings of saliva that followed the spitted, hateful words clung to his face. He raged impotently beneath his stone burden. _She_?

"Please, she's done nothing wrong!"

"She will." The boot found his shoulder again, and he clenched his teeth, desperate to not give his tormentor the satisfaction of a cry.

The boot kicked his face in, and the pain brought welcome blackness.

When finally he woke, he was on the floor of Ginji's hospital room, curled up in a fetal position against the pain.

Adorlee had wakened. She sat a ways apart from him, knees drawn up to her chest in that position he had found so childlike earlier. Her face was flushed and wet with tears. "Forgive me," she said quietly, and a faint tremor in her voice insinuated that she didn't really believe he would. She lowered her face to her knees. A little lift in her shoulders, followed by another, told him that she had begun to cry again, though she didn't make a sound.

The pain had vanished with the vision, though the memory of it left him dazed. He crawled to her, casting a glance over his shoulder at his still-sleeping partner, grateful that whatever had happened to him had spared Ginji.

"Pressing?" Pressing had been a favorite form of torturing confessions from witches during the late sixteenth century.

He heard her swallow, and she turned her tear-streamed face up to him. He held her eyes, fervently hoping his composure would calm her. He hated crying females. She dropped her head forward once in affirmation, eyes clinging to his, disbelief evident in the mismatched orbs.

He clenched his fist to hold back the serpent. "That was your memory, wasn't it."

She pulled away a little from his anger, misinterpreting it. Crossing arms over her breast, she shrank into herself. "I was seven."

He felt the anger appear on his face as he knelt before her and became even angrier when she flinched away from him, ignorantly believing his wrath was directed at her.

Snaking out his left hand, he grasped her arm and pulled her into a rough embrace. She stiffened, shocked, but seeing that he hadn't rejected her, relaxed a little against him.

"How, Adorlee?" he asked softly, addressing her by name for the first time. He didn't let her go.

"Projection," she answered, her voice equally soft. Her breath felt warm against his bared shoulder. "Anyone who catches the gaze of a witch in the grip of a powerful dream or memory can be sucked into the dream as well. I am truly sorry you had to see that."

"Who were they? The woman with the boots, and the woman who tried to stop her?"

"High Inquisitor Annamaria Spiro wore the boots. Naoya Ren, who kidnapped me from Brain Trust, was the other woman. Spiro killed Ren-san for trying to protect me." Old grief saturated the words.

"I'm sorry, Adorlee." He released her somewhat, though he kept his hands on her shoulders. He searched her eyes for a moment, and finding no untruthfulness there, decided to trust his gut about her. "We need to talk, you and I. But I want to get Ginji someplace safer before we do."

She nodded her agreement and pulled away from him. "Let me ask the doctors about moving him."

He almost objected, but she pressed a finger to his lips. "We shall take him in any case, but if there is any medication or particular observation that ought to be given, it would be better for us to know beforehand."

She got to her feet, albeit a little unsteadily. Feeling a little foolish, he stumbled to his feet as well, surprised at how the memory yet toyed with his body. "You're probably right," he allowed. "I'll go talk to them."

"No, Ban-kun. I will go. Your… people skills… are sorely in need of polishing. I would like to remove Amano-san from the hospital, but I would prefer not to upset half the staff in the doing."

He glared at her, but the slight jibe lightened the strain a little. "Whatever."

He reached for the IV hose, reluctant to disconnect it, but pretty sure Ginji would be okay regardless. The eel had no right to heal as quickly and perfectly as he did. She slipped silently from the room while he unhooked his partner and found his clothes. Hevn still had the vest, but he'd get that later. He didn't bother to dress Ginji. It wasn't worth the trouble of maneuvering Ginji's lanky body, and though he wouldn't have admitted it, he was anxious to get away as quickly as possible.

By the time she returned, he had managed to get into his tank and shirt, and get Ginji more or less ready to go. The blond Get Backer still slept soundly, though his breathing continued to be labored.

"I'm surprised they're letting him go without a fight, considering he was infected with whatever-that-was." Not that he really cared why. He would have taken Ginji whether they fought him or not.

"SR-419. He was infected, but not yet contagious. SR-419 requires an incubation period of up to four or five days." Her lips pressed together tightly. "The victim is seldom contagious for long. SR-419 is almost invariably fatal within a week's time."

"I hate to leave this open," Ban admitted, looking at his sleeping partner. He was getting a headache. "But I can't deal with biological weapons and inquisitors."

"Do not trouble yourself about it, Ban-kun. The proper authorities have been alerted. They will take the appropriate measures."

Shrugging, he said, "I hope so. I got trouble enough without trying to save the world."

She smiled, and for the first time that day, Ban saw genuine warmth in the expression. "Truly."

"How are you feeling?" he asked suddenly. "You seemed pretty wasted a few minutes ago."

"I recover quickly. I have strength enough to make another journey." She grimaced. "I am afraid you will have to just hold on to me, this time, Ban-kun. You are a difficult person to possess, and to do so again would probably drain me completely."

"Possess?" His eyes nearly came out of his head; with difficulty, he forced his face into some semblance of impassivity.

"Yes. I did not believe you knew how to walk the shadows, and did not have time to teach you. As powerful as you are, holding on to me probably would have left you so nauseous that even that votary would have presented a challenge to you. Possession was perhaps more costly for me, but it paid off."

His disgruntled look inspired a small smile. "Trust me; it was more unpleasant for me than it was for you. Male bodies are somewhat… disorderly."

He flushed, wondering exactly what that meant. "So sorry," he snapped.

"It is taxing," she continued, pointedly ignoring him. "Forcing two bodies to share the same space violates a number of physical laws. Causing them to operate as one entity violates laws on another level of existence entirely. It requires the total subjugation of a mind, body, and soul to another; I would not have done so if the need had not been desperate."

Ban thought of the votary, with his wicked looking knife, remembering what Adorlee had told him would have happened to Ginji if they hadn't come quickly enough. "If you say so. But I still don't like it."

"As I do not actually recall having asked your preference, I doubt I shall lose sleep over the incident." A mischievous gleam sparkled in her eyes, despite the seriousness of their predicament.

"I thought I told you not to call me otouto."

That caught her off guard. "I beg your pardon?" she faltered.

"When you told me not to look at you. You called me 'otouto.'"

She looked at him silently for a moment, trying to decide whether he was serious or not. Evidently his grim countenance held; her face fell a little and she said carefully, "I do not recall."

"Yeah, you do." He gave in and smiled at her.

"You _are_ the younger," she reminded him with an eloquently raised brow.

"We can talk about that later. What did they say about Ginji?"

"Only that the greatest danger right now is an infection of the lungs. They are badly damaged, and even at his accelerated rate of recovery, it will be several weeks before they are fully healed." She frowned thoughtfully. "They told me it would be best for him to remain in a hospital, but if I was determined to remove him, I should be careful that he is kept still and quiet. A respiratory infection could cause serious problems."

Ban nodded. "We should go." He left their destination in Adorlee's hands – as if he could have done otherwise, he thought to himself. She knew far more about his enemies than he did, and, not wanting to drag Ginji halfway across Tokyo to find his almost-certainly towed 360, walking the shadows was his best option.

"Can you carry him?" she asked.

Ban scooped up his partner in response, and she motioned him into a shadowed corner of the room. "I apologize for this," she said, and she reached out to touch him.


	4. The Most Massive Characters

Not my world, just my playground.

A/N This title was taken from a quote by Khalil Gibran, which reads, "Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars." I always liked this one for Ban and Ginji, but it works even better for Adorlee, as you'll see. I'm having fun with this story so far, and thanks to everyone who has reviewed. Any suggestions would be welcome. Hope you enjoy!

**The Most Massive Characters  
**

It was eleven all over again, only this time the woman beside him had pale brown hair and bright, frank, mismatched eyes.

Ban plunged out of the shadows with a gasp. He barely registered Adorlee's wry, sympathetic expression, but he did see the finger that pointed to a closed door across the room. His insides roiled and swelled against his throat with a slick, oozing kind of lurch. There was an odd, round bed; he dumped Ginji on it and followed Adorlee's silent direction to the bathroom, vaulting over a peculiarly shaped sofa with one hand, holding his mouth with the other.

Every time he thought he had finished, an involuntary clenching shuddered through his gut and forced more up. Green bile slid through his mouth, between his teeth, sickening him further. Eventually there was nothing left, but the heaving did not stop until long after the contents of his stomach had joined those of the sewer.

Dizzy and disoriented, he tried to stand, only to find the pale green tile of the bathroom rushing up at him. He twisted his torso round, trying to land on the cushion of the ropy muscle of his upper arm. He missed and landed on his shoulder with an expletive and a grunt. Spreading his hands over the cold ceramic tile, he raised himself again, more cautiously this time. After he managed to get to his knees, he realized he was shaking like a leaf.

A white towel with arabesque vines sprawling over its borders appeared at his injured shoulder. Flushing, he took it.

"That idiot didn't feel it at all, did he." He mopped the sweat from his face savagely before balling up the towel and hurling it across the room. Adorlee, poised and calm, retrieved it.

"He has no magic," she replied with a slight, elegant shrug. "The shadows have no effect on him."

Ban cursed again and stumbled to his feet. A small, pale hand reached out as if to steady him, but pulled away at his glare. Adorlee folded her hands neatly at her waist. "You should find a spare toothbrush in the second drawer on the right. And mouthwash in the medicine cabinet. I cannot imagine that you would want anything to eat --" He gagged involuntarily, and she nodded. "No, of course not. The effects should wear off within a few hours. You have not slept?"

He shook his head, not entirely sure when he had last gotten any sleep.

"Ah. There are any number of cushions and pillows here; I can set up a pallet for you on the floor, or you could join Amano-san, if you would prefer that."

He opened his mouth to retort that the pallet would be fine, but a sudden wave of nausea welled in his belly, and he collapsed in front of the toilet. Nothing came of it, but he burned with embarrassment.

Without a word, Adorlee handed him the towel again. He wiped spittle from his mouth, unable to meet her eyes.

She extended a hand down to him, and before he could decide whether or not to take it, she had pulled him to his feet, settling her other arm around his waist. "You cannot embarrass me, Ban-kun." There was a grim tone to her voice, and a hard set to her mouth. For a moment he allowed himself to rest on her, straining to capture whatever it was she wasn't saying. But no explanation was forthcoming.

He pulled away from her, but her arm stayed firmly about his waist. "Would it not be more disagreeable to fall on your face, Ban-kun?"

Grimacing, he granted her the point and permitted her to guide his unwilling body back into the room where Ginji still slept quietly. The blonde Get Backer's undisturbed slumber was beginning to worry his partner.

"Should he be sleeping like that?" Ban asked as they made their way toward Ginji. With Adorlee's help, he lowered himself to sit on the bed. She sat beside him, but not before adjusting the comforter more securely about Ginji's shoulders. Miserable as he felt, he couldn't help smiling a little at the fussy, motherly gesture.

"The sleep spell I cast will last another hour or two yet. He required little assistance; your friend is a heavy sleeper." A slight smile touched her mouth, small and a little wistful, but honest. It was, Ban noted with a peculiar, unfamiliar pang, a very pretty kind of smile, one that sat well on her stern mouth and softened the hard lines of her eyes. "It is difficult to believe that someone who grew up in the shadow of Brain Trust can sleep so soundly."

Ban snorted. "Yeah, he's an idiot." He watched the shuddering breath that passed in and out of Ginji's body and felt an unpleasant _something _sieze up within. "He didn't used to sleep that well," he admitted, suddenly a little irritated with himself for deriding his partner to a stranger. Ginji would have defended him to anyone, him and any of his many odd habits.

Adorlee's gentle smile remained. Her eyes became distant, though they seemed to rest somewhere just beyond Ginji. "Then he must feel safer, now, than he once did."

That odd something caught in his chest again. "Idiot," he repeated softly.

They sat quietly until Ban realized that Adorlee's gaze had turned to him. He cast a sidelong glance at her, met her eyes, and raised a brow. "What?"

"I fear I must disagree with you, Ban-kun." A glimmer of mischief tugged at her mouth. "I think Ginji's sense of security is well-placed."

He pulled a face at her and she smiled more broadly. "Let me fetch some bedding for you."

She slipped away, with a sure-footed silence. The thought crossed Ban's mind that the stealthy movement was at least as much practice as natural grace, but before he could think to wonder at how she'd learned it, his grip on the world around him slid away into a comfortable darkness. His last coherent thought was a curse when he hit his injured shoulder as he collapsed on the circular bed beside his partner.

He opened his eyes some time later and growled irritably at the pillow when he realized he'd slept the night through with Ginji at his side, though the other Get Backer had disappeared.

The night before, the nausea had been so overwhelming, the need for sleep so driving, that he hadn't really taken the time to observe his surroundings. Chiding himself for his carelessness, he cast a searching gaze over the room he had passed the night in. Old habits die hard; his first thought was to locate any and all exits. He carefully filed away the two doors – one of which, he knew, led to the bathroom with green tiles, six windows, and a fireplace. He was in a corner room, for windows lined two of the four walls.

Between the windows and on the walls opposite them, a number of black and white photos hung in geometric formations. Some were easily recognizable images, while others seemed to be up-close views of familiar objects. They were really quite striking, and he found his gaze lingering on the masterful photography.

The whole of the room bore a black and white color scheme. Black rugs of various shapes and sizes broke the monotony of the white carpet, and black wooden furniture had been upholstered in rich black and white silks and velvets. The windows were dressed in black velvet drapes and sheer white curtains. Black molding lined the white, paneled walls, and black curio cabinets held simply sculpted white figurines

It was the kind of room decorators adored, dramatic and well laid out. Ban didn't care much for it.

Adorlee appeared at the doorway – the one that didn't lead into the bathroom – and he shot her a nasty scowl.

"You surely did not think I was going to move you after you had fallen asleep." There was an amused quality to Adorlee's voice. She wore a sardonic smile that mocked Ban's glower.

"Guess not." He grimaced and pushed himself up. His shoulder burned where he'd fallen in the bathroom the night before.

"Would you like something to eat? Ginji-kun ate several hours ago."

She raised a brow, and noted critically, "He is not an easy person to keep still." Mock disapproval joined the amused notes in her tone. "You might have warned me."

Ban groaned inwardly, imagining just how excitable Ginji was likely to be, finding himself in the company of a pretty woman, in a strange place.

Adorlee smiled, a bit wickedly. "I am not without my resources, Ban-kun. I managed." Crooking a finger at him, she started toward the bedroom door.

He followed her out, and then down the narrow hallway that lay beyond. Strains of English caught his ears; he smirked a little to himself, pleased that he remembered so well a language he hadn't spoken or practiced in years.

"Are you hinting my apples aren't what they ought to be?"

"Oh, no! It's just that she doesn't like little green worms!"

"I'll show you how to get apples. Hooray! I guess that did it. Help yourself."

"Why, it's a man! A man made out of tin!"

"What?"

"Oil can! Oil can!"

Ban blinked. "The Wizard of Oz?" he asked incredulously, as Adorlee led him into a spacious parlor.

Smiling beatifically, she replied, "I told you, I have my resources."

"Clever."

Ban's eyes found the screen, where Dorothy stood examining the 'oil can' demanded of her. Japanese subs ran along with the script, completely entrancing the blonde Get Backer who lounged before the television. Adorlee had fabricated a make-shift pallet of cushions; atop it, Ginji lay bundled up in a colorful assortment of blankets. Ban shivered, just noticing the chill in the air. Immediately navy blue fleece settled around his shoulders, and he threw a surprised glance at his sister.

"I could never bear to gut the cottage and install a central furnace," Adorlee admitted apologetically. "I built the fire, but it will be several minutes before it warms the room."

"Ban-chan!" Ginji twisted in his swaddling blankets, grinning broadly. He cowed before Ban's scowl.

"You idiot, lie still. You're still recovering." But he looked so much better. That deathly pallor had vanished, and the happy grin Ginji wore warmed Ban more than he cared to admit.

"But, Ban-chan, I –"

"I don't want to hear it. Just watch the movie, dummy." A knowing smile replaced Ginji's grin.

"Okay, Ban-chan."

A terrible weight in the region of Ban's chest disappeared, a weight Ban had not even been aware of, and he breathed a little more freely. A pleased smile touched Adorlee's mouth. "Feeling better?" she asked ironically.

He scowled at her too, but it seemed as if the damn woman wasn't fooled by his trademark glare anymore than Ginji was.

"As your partner seems perfectly content, may I suggest breakfast, Ban-kun?"

"Is it warmer in the kitchen?" he countered.

She chuckled. "Considerably."

"Good. We need to talk anyway."

She stilled; her good humor vanished. Cold, clipped professionalism took its place, and that unfamiliar pang struck at Ban's throat once again. "Of course.

She led him out of the parlor and down a steep, narrow staircase. He had to be in some kind of cottage, he mused, though the pretty, green scenery out the tiny windows offered no real clues as to where he might be. He felt positive, however, that he was _not_ in Japan. Adorlee's name seemed to indicate that he might be in France, but Ban never assumed anything, and he didn't now.

The kitchen was an enormous affair, obviously intended to be manned by at least two or three servants. Some kind of country manor's cottage, it looked like.

Adorlee caught him staring. "French," she supplied cryptically, confirming his suspicions. "After Spiro murdered Ren-san, I was rescued from the High Inquisitor by another, who brought me to Paris. A wizard who lived there adopted me and taught me what he knew of witchcraft."

A peculiar expression twisted her mouth; Ban couldn't identify it. "He did not know much, but he introduced me to the right books. I returned to Japan when he passed away and found a fairly skilled witch to continue learning with."

Ban's heart nearly stopped, but Adorlee spoke on, oblivious. "Evidently she knew our grandmother, or so she said. I was never quite sure what to believe with her."

Maria. That old hag had known for god knew how long – probably from the beginning, knowing the woman as well as he did – and never a word. Ban almost cursed aloud, but bit his tongue at the last minute. He would have private words with Maria. There didn't seem to be any reason to include Adorlee in that conversation, when it could only cause her pain to know that her teacher had knowingly, willfully withheld vital information about her origins and her family from her.

Oh, yes. They would have words. Just as soon as Maria figured out how to get out of his Snake Bite. Which she would, sooner or later – she was a talented witch, after all.

"Ban-kun?" Adorlee's voice cut into his thoughts. "Are you quite well? You look upset." She held her head elegantly cocked to the side, and Ban stared at her for a moment.

She had the bearing of a courtier, graceful and genteel, small, neat, and perfectly self-possessed. Her carriage could not be faulted, with her ramrod straight back and smooth, refined movements. Not a hair was out of place, despite their unusual sleeping arrangements – he had no doubt that he and Ginji had been in her bed, and she hadn't offered him another. He doubted she would have taken a spare bed for herself; her manners were too good, her whole demeanor too courteous; she had slept on the floor, he was certain. Yet it seemed to have taken no toll at all on her.

His grandmother had been a lot like that, well-bred and polished. He could do it, if he had too. But he didn't much care for pretending to be something he wasn't. Adorlee's good breeding seemed to flow logically from a kind-hearted, if somewhat wry, temperament, and Grandmother's – and his – were purely for show.

She had that same aura of sweet-tempered sincerity that Ginji always exuded, for all she was rather more world-wise. Cynical bastard that he was, he felt as drawn to that unpretentiousness as a moth to a flame. He liked her, dammit.

"Ban-kun?"

"Sorry. Just thinking. You're not anything like our grandmother, you know." The 'our' rolled naturally off of Ban's tongue; he almost shivered inwardly at how easy it had become to accept the poised young lady as his sister.

She raised her eyebrows. "Have I been praised or insulted?"

Ban smiled a rare, genuine smile he usually reserved for Ginji. "It was meant to be a compliment."

Her answering smile seemed a little shy, or perhaps embarrassed, but certainly pleased as she gestured to an antique, rustic-looking table in the corner. A variety of scones and croissants sat atop the table, along with clotted cream and a number of fruit spreads. Ban's mouth began to water; there were a few European foods he'd really missed.

And clotted cream topped the list.

Ginji had made a serious dent in the food, but there was still plenty. Ban took a seat before a china place setting and forced himself to wait for Adorlee to join him. She poured him a cup of coffee. "Do you prefer it black?"

He nodded and sipped at it. It was good, really good. Maybe better than Paul's. "We should probably start at the beginning, but with inquisitors involved…" He allowed his voice to trail off meaningfully.

"I agree wholeheartedly. Time is of the essence." She selected an orange-cranberry scone for herself and smeared a little of the cream on it. "Perhaps the warehouse?" Her voice was dubious.

Ban understood her hesitation and shook his head. "Forget it. I believe you had your reasons for being there; you can tell me about them later. You were going to confront me in any case, right? The antivirus was just a convenient segue?" He waited for her nod, and then continued, "Then let's worry about that later."

He covered a scone in clotted cream. "How did you find out? About me – about the inquisitor coming after me?"

She winced at his blunt tone. "I actually discovered the inquisitor first. I contract with a shadow demon, who keeps me apprised of any Praetors in the area. I –"

"Contract?" Ban asked curiously. His grandmother had spoken of familiars, but he'd always assumed they were ordinary animals.

"I open a gateway into this world for him, in exchange for his insider information. Harmless, really, though he likes to frighten people by making shadows move in unnatural ways. It is perhaps selfish of me, but I would rather some child see something spooky in their closet than come face to face with a Praetor again." She shuddered. Obviously if she had ever had any qualms about frightening children, she had long set them aside. He couldn't blame her. Praetors were rumored to be –

"Again?" Ban demanded incredulously, finally catching the importance of her last phrase.

"Yes, again. That is all I have to say about that matter, Ban-kun. Please do not question me further about it."

"But you –" There were so many things she could tell him, that would help their situation, but she cut him off.

"How did it feel to murder your best friend, Ban-kun?"

Ban froze. His whole body felt limp and clammy, and his hand remembered the warm, slick blood, his nose the scent of urine released in death, his ears the deafening silence. And then Himiko screamed.

"Got it," he said finally, still feeling cold. At some point he'd dropped his scone. "You'll show me your scars –"

"If you show me yours."


	5. Forked Tongues and Honest Hearts

Not my world, just my playground.

A/N: Brigham Young once said, "Honest hearts produce honest actions," and I pulled the title for this chapter from that quote. I keep thinking back to the IL retrieval, after Ban takes the Bloody Sword through his shoulder, and sends Ginji on ahead, swearing he's alright. A lie -- but a well-intentioned one.

**Forked Tongues and Honest Hearts**

Ginji wondered if the girl in the movie was actually crazy, or if she really did go to Oz and follow a yellow brick road to the Emerald City. Then he laughed at himself, because Ban would have laughed at him, and said _he_ was crazy for wondering such things about a movie.

But privately, he thought she really did go to Oz.

Now, in this funny house, with the pretty girl who claimed to be Ban's sister, he felt a little like Dorothy – way out of his depth. She wouldn't tell him anything, wanted to wait for Ban, but a feeling of urgency had been crawling along his skin ever since he'd woken up in the funky round bed next to Ban, and it wouldn't leave him alone, no matter how he tried to concentrate on the movie. It was as if danger hovered in the air nearby, and she was refusing to tell him where to look.

It wasn't that she was unkind, no, quite the contrary. She'd been more than generous and helpful getting breakfast into him and making him comfortable, despite the painful rattle in his aching chest and the soreness in his throat. He liked her, he really did, because she always seemed just a little amused by everything. It was as if she viewed the world from the same high vantage as Ban did – one of intellectual, physical, and moral superiority – but where Ban rolled his eyes in disdain, she only smiled tolerantly. She had infinite patience, and he appreciated that about her.

Really.

But she gave him a very strange feeling, right at the base of his spine, a chill, warning kind of feeling. She hadn't told him anything, and he knew beyond a doubt that she wouldn't tell Ban anything more than she wanted him to know. Adorlee was far too clever to relinquish by accident or fumble to artifice any truth she wanted to hang on to, and Ginji felt certain she had a number of them.

Her eyes looked like Teshimine's, brimming over with remembered pain and countless secrets.

A sudden wrench in his soul left him anxious for Ban. Somehow, something had gone terribly, terribly wrong.

Ginji pushed himself into a sitting position, groaning as the effort strained his aching body. It wasn't easy to maneuver his protesting limbs, but he managed to drag himself to his feet by grabbing hold of the sofa. From there, he half-stumbled, half-fell into the door, catching himself just in time by grabbing the door knob. Braced against the wall for support, Ginji slowly made his way down the corridor, to the narrow stairwell he had passed earlier that morning, when Adorlee had taken him into the living room and brought big platters of fruity breads up to him. He paused a moment at the top step, trying to catch his breath after the slight exertion. Every inhalation hurt, but Ban needed him. Gripping the handrail tightly, he started down the stairs.

He almost fell, on the fifth step down, and each of the thirteen succeeding steps came at a high price. His vision clouded over twice, and his breathing came in mercilessly painful gasps. Every part of his illness-weakened body screamed for relief; he tightened his hold on the railing and counted the steps, intent on conquering one at a time, because Ban was at the other end of them.

When he finally made it to the bottom, his brain had melted into a puddle of confused goo, with only one purpose – to find Ban-chan.

Ban sat opposite Adorlee at the table. Both stared at one another, scarcely breathing, each weighing the other, each suddenly on the defensive. Neither noticed Ginji.

But they weren't fighting, and that's what Ginji had been afraid of.

Satisfied that whatever trouble had come to Ban was neither immediate nor life-threatening, Ginji allowed the blackness to overcome him, and sank silently into the void.

When he came to, Ban and Adorlee were talking quietly together, not far away. The feeling of urgency had died down, although the uncomfortable sense of impending danger refused to dissipate. The upset that had so knocked Ban off-kilter had been dealt with and put away, and Ginji was glad for it. His partner remained confused and not a little unhappy, but whatever danger had flared had disappeared. For the moment, Ginji could be satisfied with that.

He lay on a long, rather uncomfortable sofa, an antique looking thing with pale green velvet upholstery. Neither his partner nor his host noticed him wake, or at least, they didn't acknowledge the fact, and so he closed his eyes again and tried to pay attention to their conversation.

Adorlee was speaking. "Undoubtedly."

Ban swore. "And I suppose if I leave, they'll hunt them regardless."

"Whether you are near them or not, Ban-kun, your familiarity with them is a liability to you and a danger to them. The inquisitors never strike without first compiling extensive research on their target. They know your vulnerabilities, perhaps better than you yourself do."

Ban sat silently, but his breathing sounded heavy and agitated. Finally, speaking with tones of deference Ginji had never heard from his partner, Ban asked, "What should I do?"

"Most of them can protect themselves, Ban-kun. They are stronger than you give them credit for. All you can really do for them is to warn them of the danger. The ones who cannot fend for themselves should be hidden."

"You seem to know a lot about them." Suspicion colored Ban's tone now, and Ginji noted with a concealed wince the chill in the air.

"What I could not learn by observing you directly, I acquired from other sources."

"Maria."

"Among others."

"You know a lot more about me than I do about you."

"Yes."

A stiff silence hung heavily between them. Ginji waited patiently for one or the other to cave in.

"That's hardly fair," Ban said after a moment.

"No." Adorlee sighed, a pensive, unhappy sound, and the tension broke. "My past is a burdensome one, Ban-kun. I do not care to remember it."

"Yet you dug right into mine."

"Considering that the inquisitors have taken a new interest in you, your past seems to be the relevant one."

It was a good point, and Ban fumbled for a moment for a good retort.

"I don't see why I should trust someone who refuses to trust me."

Another good point. Ginji held his breath for Adorlee's response.

Several moments passed as Adorlee weighed Ban's words. "One question, Ban-kun. You may ask any one question of me, and I swear to answer fully and truthfully."

"Tell me your top three worst memories," Ban answered immediately.

She swallowed audibly, and Ginji bit his tongue to keep from lashing out at Ban for the cruel demand. He understood it – Ban would never have asked such a thing of him, but then, he trusted him anyway. Ginji knew instinctively that time was short, and trust vital, and so far as words went, entrusting someone with your most painful experiences was about the best proof of faith you could hope for.

But that didn't make it any less cruel.

"When I was five years old, in the custody of Brain Trust, one of their members discovered that I was possessed of blood magic. A very few witches are born with the innate ability to manipulate their blood, and there is only one other alive who can do so. As I understand it, this person stole his ability from a true witch. I know not how.

"At any rate, one who commands blood magic has a uniquely potent ability to heal himself or herself, and to survive trauma most human bodies cannot withstand. Brain Trust wished to examine the limits of my skill.

"For countless weeks they pushed me to the very edge death, again and again, by every possible means they could conceive. They held me underwater until I lost consciousness, and revived me only to repeat their experiment.

"They cut every major artery, and left me to try to keep the blood flowing through my body through willpower alone. They beat me with steel rods, leaving every bone bigger than the first knuckles of my fingers broken.

"They left me in the cold, and cut off my nose, three of my toes, two fingers of my right hand and one of my left when they turned black with frostbite.

"They set me on fire, and when my entire body was black and charred, extinguished it. They were kind enough to debride the burns, though they did so without any kind of anesthetic. I think that was the worst of it, truthfully, watching them peel away the papery, puckered crust that had once been my flesh. My face and my feet were among the most painful burns, I recall."

"That's enough," Ban said, and Ginji could hear the sickness in his voice. He felt nauseous himself.

"Those weeks were the most punishing physical pain I have ever experienced," she went on, ignoring Ban. "Though there were similar, isolated incidents throughout my childhood."

"Enough, Adorlee." Ban sounded as if he were in pain himself, straining to force the words past his lips.

"Another of my worst memories would have to be Ren-san's murder. I was seven, when Spiro carved her open, right in front of me. She told me that those who help witches have no right to live and should be punished for their sin. The look in Ren-san's eyes as she watched the last few beats of her heart before Spiro cut it in half haunts my dreams still."

At some point, Ginji had started to cry, but he couldn't get enough of a breath to make a sound, to make her stop.

"But the worst was being left behind by the man who rescued me from Spiro, and took me to France. He killed her, you know, her and four other inquisitors. For the first time in my life, I felt safe, protected. Then he left me."

Adorlee's tone had been level, matter-of-fact, emotionless. Now it cracked.

"Always before, I could fight, I could hate my enemies, I could wrap the pain up in the anger and put it aside. But I could not make myself hate him, and thus had no defense against the betrayal. I wanted to die," she finished quietly.

Ban said nothing, but Ginji could feel the tension between the siblings as cleanly as if it had been between the Get Backers themselves. He held his breath, trying not to let them hear him cry. For several minutes, they remained just like that, silent and troubled.

"Neck or back?" Ban's question broke the stillness. She must have given him a strange look, because he clarified his inquiry.

"Do you want me to break his neck, or his back? It depends on whether or not you want him dead," Ban explained flatly. Ginji heard knuckles crack, could almost see the hard, cold look he knew had settled over his partner's face.

The thick anxiety bled slowly away, although Adorlee did not reply, and Ginji turned over, swiping at his eyes.

"Gin-chan," Adorlee murmured softly, sympathetically. A small hand slipped into his bigger one and squeezed it. "I did not realize you were awake. I am so very sorry."

"You haven't answered my question, yet," Ban reminded her, in a sharp tone.

"There is nothing to say, Ban-kun. When the time comes, I will confront that individual, not you." She hesitated before continuing. "Though I appreciate the sentiment more than I can say."

Ban harrumphed, and neither Ginji nor Adorlee could resist a smile, despite the gloomy turn the conversation had taken.

"At any rate," Adorlee said, her manner suddenly brisk and business-like, "old memories ought to remain in the past, where they belong. We have more pressing concerns."

Ban nodded, a vigorous movement that told his partner he was only too happy to change subjects. Feeling guilty, no doubt, for having opened such ugly wounds.

"I told you, earlier, that I found the inquisitor first, though the imp I contract with. It fears the Praetors, so it refused to guide me to it, but it did tell me where it had seen the monster." A little frown twisted her face, just a little, pulling on the corners of her mouth and etching tiny lines between her eyebrows.

"Do either of you know an Akabane Kuroudo?"

Both Get Backers nodded grimly.

"Ah. Evidently the Praetor my imp warned me of had been tracking you for some time, Ban-kun. Akabane chanced upon it, while following you, and destroyed it. Remarkable, really. I could count on one hand the number of people I know who might be capable of single-handedly killing a Praetor. My imp was thoroughly impressed with Akabane-san."

"Akabane," Ban said, wrinkling his nose with distaste, "would be that other blood-user you spoke of. Although I don't know anything about his having stolen his powers. And it doesn't surprise me at all that a demon would be impressed with him."

"I see." She shrugged. "His involvement is incidental, at best. The point is, the Praetors stopped following me years ago, and other than myself, there was only one person the inquisitors have any reason to fear." Looking long and hard at Ban, she finally raised a brow. "You must know that the one they fear is you."

"Yes, I gathered that," Ban answered drily. "But I don't understand why."

Adorlee looked away, into a distance the Get Backers could not penetrate. "You are a creature of prophecy, Ban-kun. I wonder that no one has told you this before."

"I am." A note of incredulity crept into Ban's tone.

"You are the Serpent-Bearer."

"There have been a lot of Serpent-Bearers before me."

Ginji had long since lost any of the straws he'd grasped in this conversation, and had left off paying attention. But the words "Serpent-Bearer" caught his ear.

"True. But none of them were born of the same line, and in the same generation, as a Magus Excelsior."

Ban closed his eyes. "A Magus Excelsior. God."

Smiling wryly, she shook head, and would have spoken, but Ginji's curiosity burst out first.

"What's a magus excelsi-thingy?"

"Supreme magician, Ginji," Ban said, crossing his arms, looking at Adorlee with an exasperated scowl. "Someone capable of wielding magics no ordinary witch or wizard would dream of handling. When you get right down to it, she's probably the most powerful person on the planet."

"If she's so powerful," Ginji asked, before his brain caught up with him, "how come she couldn't get away from all those bad people?"

Ban shot him an ugly look, and Ginji winced as his insensitivity dawned on him.

"Even a first-rate witch needs a _little_ instruction, Ginji," Adorlee explained gently. "I was denied that for many years. Only that magic which could be summoned inadvertently could I utilize, and that only as an instinctive response to a perceived threat."

"That time, fortunately, has long since passed." Her eyes narrowed, and something distant and dangerous stormed in their mismatched depths. "The meddling of Brain Trust and the inquisitors spawned their own worst fear, and made viable the prophecy they had hoped to avert."

"That explains why the inquisitors stopped following you. Even a demon of a Praetor's strength doesn't stand a chance against a Magus Excelsior in full possession of her magic," Ban mused.

"No." Two small white hands clasped each other firmly, resting in Adorlee's lap, as if she were trying not to fidget. "But, as we have already discussed, there are other ways to attack a powerful enemy, particularly if you have no moral strictures against harming innocents and by-standers."

Ginji flinched. Despite her big words and overly formal speech, he fully grasped her meaning. Even a powerful witch – or a serpent-bearing-evil-eye-user – could be easily manipulated if you could somehow threaten the people they cared about.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Ban sighed. "There really is no beginning to all of this, is there, Adorlee." It was not a question.

"I fear not, Ban-kun. There is simply too much that must be addressed. I wish I could present it more coherently to you." An unhappy furrow appeared between her brows.

Ban sighed again and wiped his face roughly with his hands. "Ginji."

"Yes, Ban-chan?" Ginji asked brightly, happy to be included.

"Tell me what you got out of all of this."

Ginji blinked, trying to remember all of the day's events. "You mean, what do I know about what's going on?"

"Yeah."

Adorlee's eyes shifted curiously between the Get Backers, but she said nothing.

"Well," Ginji began, "Adorlee-chan is your twin sister, but she was abducted by Brain Trust right after she was born, and so neither one of you knew it. And she found out after… something… told her that a demon was in Japan, and that led her to you." He frowned. "I guess that doesn't really explain how she knew you two were brother and sister," he admitted, "so I must have missed that part."

Ban shook his head. "No, I missed that part, too." He looked expectantly at Adorlee.

"Prophecy told me I had a twin brother. For me to be the foretold Magus Excelsior, I knew you had to exist," she explained. "Although I did not know who you were or where you might be, I did know that the Praetors would be seeking you. I followed the trail of the Praetor my imp had informed me about, and discovered you. The resemblance seemed rather too profound to be mere coincidence, so I confronted my teacher here in Japan with the observation, and she deigned to tell me the truth. I obtained our official records directly after that encounter."

One dark eyebrow raised, and Ban adjusted his sunglasses. "Oh. So you already dealt with Maria, did you?" His voice was deceptively calm.

"We had a nice little chat, yes," Adorlee smirked. The expression looked so much like one of Ban's that Ginji drew back a little in surprise.

"Good." Ban relaxed into the sofa. "Good."

Looking back to Ginji, Ban asked, "Go on, what else have you picked up on?"

"Umm… Adorlee is a really strong witch with a really sad past, and somehow that has something to do with you and a prophecy…" He frowned again.

"That's good, Ginji." Ban quirked another brow at Adorlee. "Prophecy seems to be cropping up quite a bit, Adorlee."

"The prophecy is a trouble all to itself, Ban-kun. Let us smooth over any other rough patches in this narrative first, if we may."

"Fair enough. Ginji, what about Adorlee?" The eyes of the girl in question flashed toward him, and he shifted uncomfortably. "What do you know about Adorlee?"

"She grew up with Brain Trust," Ginji answered carefully. "A lady rescued her from them, but the inquisitors – whoever they are – captured her after that. Another person -- who later abandoned her -- rescued her from them, and took her to a wizard in France. I guess after that is when they stopped hunting her, since she became the Magnum Exus thing."

"Inquisitors are a lot of things, but just think of them as witch-hunters, Ginji. Fanatics. What else about Adorlee?"

Ginji shrugged. "What else do you want to know, Ban-chan?"

"Do you trust her?" The question was blunt, and Ginji almost winced as Adorlee stiffened beside him.

"I…" Ginji looked at her and drew a deep breath. "I believe that she really wants to do well by you, and me. I believe she's a good person. But I also think that, if she thought the reason were good enough, she wouldn't tell us the truth. Or at least, not all of the truth. But her intentions are good. That I know for sure."

"That's what I wanted," Ban said with some satisfaction. Strangely, Ginji's confession of his reservations didn't seem to phase his partner one bit.

"You're okay with that?" Ginji asked, surprised. He noticed Adorlee's eyes flicker toward her brother.

"Not really, but I get it." His gaze shifted to Adorlee. "I've been known to keep things to myself, when necessary. As long as you realize that I'm notoriously curious, and I won't settle for half-truths. If you won't tell me everything, I'll figure it out on my own."

A little smile began to dance around the corners of Adorlee's mouth, and Ginji felt the sofa shift as her posture relaxed into something less stiff. "I foresee no problems with that," she replied.

The smile softened, became something very sweet. "Thank you, Ginji-kun."

Ginji blushed. "For what, Adorlee-chan?"

"For helping to simplify things, Ginji," Ban answered breezily, carelessly.

"It seems Ban-kun has a tendency to over-complicate matters." Adorlee's voice had taken on a slightly sly note, and Ginji had to smother a laugh as Ban colored. "And I am not the best story-teller in the world. Your unique…" she hesitated, "_perspective_… cleared a lot of confusion between us. I am grateful."

He still wasn't entirely sure what she was talking about, but she had a pretty smile and whatever that scary dangerous look in her eyes had been, it had disappeared into something very warm and friendly, and very unlike Ban. And he knew, with a fuzzy kind of comfortable feeling, way down deep in his soul, that the warm friendliness in her funny eyes was every bit as real and honest as the thunder and danger had been.

Secrets or no secrets, he liked her. And he trusted her, in the same way he trusted Ban, though on a much less familiar level. Even if he couldn't always trust what they said, he knew he could trust their actions. Adorlee's regard for the Get Backers was sincere, her heart genuine. And that was a lot more important.


	6. Good Dost Thou Ne'er Foretell

Prophet of evil! Never hadst thou yet / A cheerful word for me. To mark the signs / Of coming mischief is thy great delight. / Good dost thou ne'er foretell nor bring to pass. From the Illiad

As always, the fabulous Get Backers belong to another. sigh

**Good Dost Thou Ne'er Foretell**

"I want to hear about this prophecy, Adorlee," Ban said firmly. "I want to know why the Inquisitors have taken such an interest in me, when they haven't bothered me in ten years or more."

Adorlee nodded, a resigned gesture that immediately set off warning bells in Ban's head. She obviously wasn't looking forward to what she had to say.

Adorlee reached out to grasp his right hand. Ban was surprised, but didn't pull away. Turning his palm face up, she studied the lines etched into his flesh.

"You know, do you not, that the names "Asclepius" and "Ophiucus" really mean nothing at all?"

Ban shrugged. "I never really thought about it."

She didn't release his hand. "They are just terms, words that human beings – witches – have assigned to a specific force in the universe. The fact that the force manifests as a serpent is dependent solely on the so-called "Serpent-Bearers'" internal understanding of the power they wield. You, for instance, feel as though the serpent coils around you, slipping down your right arm whenever you require it. Our grandmother imagined it differently; the serpent was much smaller and wound about her arm, constantly resting its head in the palm of her hand. But the force itself has nothing to do with mythology. The only reason it acquired the names it has is because a serpent-bearer is always born under the sign of Ophiucus, when the earth is in a certain position in its orbit."

Ban listened intently, curious at his own lack of need to remove his hand from her much smaller one. She wasn't looking down at his palm anymore, but watching him with an unhappy expression.

"Any half-trained sorcerer or witch knows that the forces they manipulate are given shape and substance by their own imagination. What you consider to be a snake could just as easily be a lion, or a sword, or anything else.

"The problem is that, although we know that mythology has nothing to do with what we are, people have a need to classify and nominate powers and objects. We are uncomfortable with things we cannot identify.

Frowning, Ban finally pulled his hand away. "I get it, already. Go on."

She bit her lip. "Snakes happen to be one of those creatures that so fascinate people that mythology about them is ingrained into cultures around the world."

"What, they think I'm Satan or something?" Ban grinned good-humoredly, but Adorlee didn't return the smile.

"That is precisely what they think." That brought him up short.

"You're joking."

"Believe me, I wish I were."

"But that's ridiculous."

"They are fanatics, Ban-kun – logic is not one of their strong points."

"Wait a minute," Ginji interrupted. He'd been sitting so quietly Ban had almost forgotten him. "They left him alone for a long time. Why would they do that, if they really thought Ban-chan was the devil?"

"Grandmother frightened them," Ban said, suddenly feeling cold all over. "They must have believed that she was serving the… serving me… when she rescued me from them."

"But that's stupid," Ginji objected. "If you were really the devil you would have to be super-powerful, right? They shouldn't have been able to catch you in the first place, so they should have known they were wrong about you."

"Deviousness is one of the devil's better known characteristics," Adorlee pointed out, a twisted, wry expression on her face."

"But Grandmother was a serpent-bearer," Ban said, thoughts flying. "And they had a lot more to fear from her than from me. Why didn't they assume _she_ was Satan?"

"Grandmother was not the twin brother of a Magus Excelsior." Exhaling sharply, "That is the prophecy that so complicates matters, Ban-kun, the one that foretells our births and lives. I say it is complicated because there are actually two prophecies. In one, you destroy the world, and that part of the prophecy is rapidly approaching. That's why they are hunting you now."

Ban blinked. "Bullshit."

She sighed, and moved to the fireside, watching the flames intently. "You are obviously well-versed in the classics, Ban-kun, you know the destroyer myths of the serpent. The Norwegian serpent which devours the roots of the world tree, the devil, even Shiva in his Destroyer form references snakes."

"Yeah, but there's also the Midgard Serpent, and that Egyptian protector-cobra-thing, and naga temple guardians, and even Asclepius was a good guy – a doctor! " Ginji protested, much to Ban's surprise. Adorlee was also taken aback, and she turned away from the fire so that three bright blue eyes and one lavender one stared incredulously at the blonde Get Backer.

Ginji crossed his arms defensively. "I was curious! Just because I can't remember all those funny foreign words doesn't mean I don't know how to Google."

Adorlee smiled warmly, and Ginji flushed. "Yes, of course. There are many good interpretations of the snake, and Asclepius is certainly among them." Her smile faded, and her fragile brows dipped toward the bridge of her nose, pinched together unhappily. "But one of the hallmarks of fanaticism is the ability to disregard evidence that disputes one's personal beliefs."

"So if this damn thing had been called Leo, I could be on the other side of their version of the prophecy," Ban said bitterly.

"I think it would take more than a name to convince anyone that you were the Lion of Judah," Adorlee answered wryly, though her eyes were sympathetic.

"This is stupid," Ginji complained. "Ban's not the devil. That's just… dumb."

"Adorlee." Ban felt her peculiar eyes shift toward him.

"I want to see these damn prophecies."

She shook her head. "I am not currently in possession of either. One was stolen when I was nine years old, the other Maria had. And that one was recently stolen as well."

Ban cursed.

"I memorized all the relevant texts," she said with a shrug. "I am not especially worried about surprises."

"Then tell me what the relevant texts are," he said, biting down his impatience.

"There are the parts that discuss our childhoods, but we have already lived through those. The important texts are those yet to come."

Licking her lips, she began.

"Both prophecies agree that a creature – they call it 'the Ravager,' will soon be unleashed on the earth." She closed her eyes. "_The Ravager doth approach, and all the earth shudders mightily at his coming. The great beast shall engage its equal in most violent combat, and when his strength is at its apex, the right hand of the heavens shall strike the beast down to the pit, to rage in its futility for a thousand years more, if man be deemed worthy of salvation_."

Opening her eyes, she continued, "The other prophecy names the Ravager's opponent as 'the serpent', and maintains that its – Ban's – victory over the Ravager will destroy the world."

She began to recite once again, "_Yet tremble, ye children of Adam, at the vanquishing of the Ravager, for the serpent's wrath is more terrible still, and its fury shall not diminish with victory. And lo, though the serpent shall strike down the Ravager, in its relentless rage shall it pursue the creature into the pit, and thus destroy the world. Fire and blood shall be its only consolations, and thus it will embroil the earth in both. Yea, tremble, children of Adam, for the serpent's victory shall be a curse upon man_."

Ban clapped his hand over Ginji's mouth to forestall the inevitable questions. "Basically, if I fight this Ravager thing, I win, but destroy the world."

Ginji pulled free before Adorlee could answer. "What's the Ravager?"

"No one knows for sure, Ginji-kun. The inquisitors believe that it is the beast of Revelations, and that the 'right hand of the heavens' is Christ himself, or perhaps a devout servant of God. They think that if Ban subdues the beast, rather than some divine agent or other, the world is doomed."

"And what do you think?" Ban snapped, voice harsh in his own ears. Ginji tensed up beside him, obviously picking up on his hurt and fear and frustration, but Ban was too upset to worry about his transparence.

She looked at him frankly. "If you are asking if I believe you to be a monster and an instrument of the apocalypse, then no, I do not. I do believe you are 'the serpent,' as well as 'the right hand of the heavens,' and that you will fight and defeat this creature, whatever it might be."

"And the rest of it?" he challenged

She shrugged, unfazed. "Predicting the future is problematic at best. The fact that so many know the prophecies and are working against them is almost certain to avert fate's course. The inquisitors want to change that second prophecy by killing you before you have the opportunity to encounter the Ravager, thus leaving the role of savior open for a more… acceptable... candidate. You and I – and Ginji-kun – want to prevent you from charging into hell after it, fulfilling the first prophecy and avoiding the second."

Ginji shook his head. "That doesn't make any sense, Adorlee-chan. Why would Ban-chan go after that thing in the first place? If he's already beaten it, why would he chase it down to beat it up some more? He's not like that."

She smiled ruefully. "Unfortunately, one of the most frustrating aspects of prophecy is what it fails to reveal, Ginji-kun. One presumes Ban-kun would have a solid reason for his actions."

"I'm going for a walk," Ban announced, suddenly desperate for some solitude. His mind was overwhelmed with the possibilities before him, and the implications of Adorlee's revelations. Ginji's brown eyes were dark with worry, which aggravated him to no end – really, the guy had problems enough of his own – but Adorlee pointed at a door near the front entrance.

"There are some coats in there that belong to a friend of mine. He is perhaps a little larger than you," she said apologetically.

Ban didn't answer, but reached into the closet to pull out a long gray coat. Sliding into it, wincing as the heavy wool bristled against his burnt hands, he tried to order his thoughts into some semblance of cohesiveness. Behind him, Ginji murmured something, his tone troubled, but Adorlee answered with her usual calm competence, and Ginji fell silent.

It was brutally cold outside, and he almost regretted his decision to retreat to the outdoors rather than upstairs. But at the same time, the turbulent, biting winds played a striking harmony to the tumult of Ban's mind.

Satan. Devil. Demon. A woman's fearful howl filled his mind, shrieking along the wind. It wasn't his fault, dammit. He hadn't asked for it, for any of it. A normal life might have been nice, after his crazy childhood, a pretty wife, a couple of kids, a steady job.

That would have been too easy. He clenched his teeth together, partly to keep them from chattering, partly in anger. It had started there, after all, with her, with that woman. It was how he wound up with his grandmother, learning about his curse at that old witch's feet, at the end of her own incredibly powerful grip. How he met Maria. How he found himself with the Kudous – another painful thought, which like the sound of his mother's scream, refused to let him be.

Of course, said that rational, cool part of his brain, all of that also led up to his partnership with Ginji.

It seemed as if the wind died a little bit, although he knew he was being superstitious. Ban was a pro at lying to himself, but it had been a long time since he'd even tried denying what the other Get Backer meant to him.

Even that comfort was stripped away when he realized how close he had come to losing Ginji in the last week. Their job could be dangerous, they both knew and accepted that, but it chilled him to no end that, without Adorlee's help, Ginji would have been destroyed by the votary. He would have never made it to Ginji's hospital room quickly enough alone.

Praetors. Inquisitors. And weak – but plentiful and expendable – votaries. Everyone, Ginji, Himiko, Paul, all of Ginji's friends – they would all be caught up in that ugly world of fanaticism and death. Because of him.

He paused at a low rock wall that served as a rough fence around the manor. Adorlee, whatever it was that she did, obviously did well for herself, because the manor looked even bigger from the outside. The old-style narrow hallways and small rooms disguised the real footage of the house. She was a mystery, and she hadn't told him everything she knew, but she didn't mean him any harm. That he was positive of.

It surprised him how much it hurt to imagine what she had endured. A lot of Ban's childhood had been filled with some psychological torment or other, but he had been spared physical pain for the most part. The mental image of a booted heel driving into Adorlee's tiny arm, shattering the bone, haunted him. Her nights must be filled with horrors.

His weren't all that peaceful, either, a snide little voice reminded him, selfishly. He pushed the thought away. There were other, more important concerns.

He wasn't especially worried about Ginji. Now that he knew the danger out there, he would be able to counter it more effectively. And with Ginji's irritating healing ability, he'd be in fighting trim himself in no time. No, Ginji would be okay. But he couldn't protect everyone else. Short of confining them all to a one-room cell and watching over them twenty-four seven, he simply couldn't be everywhere. Forewarned, Ginji's friends could probably take care of themselves, and could always retreat to the Infinite Castle with its many hidey-holes and MakubeX's omnipresent cameras.

That actually wasn't a bad idea. Surrounded by former Volts members, even Natsumi would be alright in Infinite Castle. He'd never talk them into it, though. Not until they'd come face-to-face with a Praetor, and then it would be too late. Other than Adorlee and his grandmother, he'd never heard of anyone coming in contact with one and surviving the encounter.

Shit.

He sat on the wall and drew his knees up to his chest. The stone was icy beneath him, but he barely felt it.

It would have helped his state of mind immensely if he could have read through the prophecies himself. Getting what he needed to know in bits and pieces from someone he had just met – no matter how much he liked her – went against his every instinct.

Right hand of the heavens. The serpent. Which one was he? A smoldering anger built up in his stomach. Who had any right to judge? And besides, prophecy was a bunch of bunk anyway, wasn't it? The words twisted around in his mind screaming their ugly predictions.

_The right hand of the heavens shall strike the beast down to the pit._

_Fire and blood shall be its only consolations, and thus it will embroil the earth in both. Yea, tremble, children of Adam, for the serpent's victory shall be a curse upon man._

Adorlee had admitted openly that she believed he was both the Ravager's intended opponent and a potential world destroyer. And that was exactly what bothered him about her. No matter how much she believed in him, no matter how much he wanted to trust her, the stakes were just too high, and she was too intelligent not to realize it. If their situations were reversed, he would go to any lengths to prevent that second prophecy.

He was under no illusions that she would do less. She would manipulate him in any way she believed necessary to avert the destruction of the world, and while he couldn't fault her for that, neither could he afford to take anything she said at face value. Protecting himself and Ginji fell entirely to him. He still believed that she had the Get Backer's best interests at heart. He believed that her regard for them was genuine. But what were two strangers when the fate of the world was hanging in the balance?


	7. Summons

As always, not my world.

**Summons**

"You," Adorlee said with a small smile, "should be resting."

Ginji answered with a sheepish smile of his own.

"Don't worry about me. I'm okay. You don't mind if I hang out with you for awhile, do you?" The girl with Ban's eyes shook her head, swinging long dark tresses over her frail shoulders.

"Not at all. Would you like some tea, Ginji-kun? Or coffee, perhaps?"

He nodded enthusiastically. "Coffee, please?"

She nodded and walked away with fluid grace, a soft-footed, silent movement that carried her across the hardwood floor and out of the room without a sound.

Ginji's eyes strayed to an open window and fell on Ban, who was struggling forward through the snow outside. The coat he was wearing was much too big, and it flapped about his lanky frame like a flag around a flagpole. Head bowed against the cold, eyes nearly closed against the wind, he almost appeared to be praying.

The unfamiliar taste of bitterness surged in Ginji's mouth. Ban's existing burdens were greater than any one man should to have to bear. Life wasn't fair to ask him to shoulder more.

Suddenly Adorlee was kneeling beside the sofa, holding a steaming mug of coffee. He jumped, wondering how she had managed to get so close without him noticing her. Her eyes were fixed on the lone figure in the snow outside.

"Ban-kun is not taking this well, is he?"

Ginji gave her a reassuring grin, an expression which came to his lips with surprising difficulty. "He just needs some time to get his thoughts together. Ban-chan doesn't like surprises."

She handed him the mug. "A long lost sibling would have been shock enough for anyone, I suppose."

Ginji nodded sympathetically, and sipped at the hot coffee, wondering how she had known how he liked it. They watched Ban for a little while longer, until he passed out of their view near a low rock wall, against which substantial drifts of snow were building.

"He likes to be in control," Ginji heard himself saying, several minutes after Ban had disappeared from view. "As soon as he feels like he's got a good handle on all the little balls you just threw at him, he'll be fine."

He was suddenly struck by a desire to elaborate on his words, and long-understood but never-spoken thoughts tumbled out of his mouth, thoughts that surprised him, given voice, because he'd never shared them before.

"Ban-chan cares a lot more than he likes to think he does. Now he's worried about me, and you, and everybody else, and probably trying to figure out the best way to keep us all safe. He's…" he chewed his lip, thinking hard.

"He's _strong_," he said fervently, searching out her eyes again, trying to make her comprehend Ban's complexities, somehow driven to make himself understood. "And because he's strong, he feels an obligation to people who aren't as strong as he is. I think that's one reason he likes having me around."

Adorlee's eyebrows knit together over her peculiar eyes, which remained intent on Ginji's face. He found that could not focus on both eyes together. The one's brilliant blue and the other's pale purple dragged his gaze back and forth, leading his vision in an oddly compelling, hypnotic arc. "You are strong also, Ginji-kun."

"I know," he answered, entranced with Adorlee's eyes. "It's just, when I'm around, he has an excuse to help. He doesn't have to admit that he cares, because I _like_ to help people, and I don't mind if people know it. If we get into trouble over it, he can always blame me for getting us into it."

"With you, he is able to be a good person without actually having to act the part," she translated.

Ginji grinned his answer, but the expression felt strangely out of place. The room started to seem a little distorted, as if he were dizzy.

"And what do you get out of this friendship, Ginji-kun? The two of you, you have a very deep connection. I fear I do not understand what it is built on – you are very different people, after all."

He looked at her helplessly. He very much wanted to answer her, desperately wanted to answer her, but was unable to do so. "I don't know that I could put it into words. I've thought a lot about it, since we first started the Get Backers. But I still can't really explain it."

"But you must reap some benefit from your partnership." Her eyes narrowed with a curious intensity, and in his curious disorientation, their cool, unplumbed depths seemed to demand an answer.

He hesitated, and then plunged onward, "Well, maybe it's that Ban-chan kind of takes charge. When I was in Infinite Castle, I felt like everything was my responsibility. The suffering people endured, the deaths I couldn't prevent, and even the bad people that I couldn't change… they were all my fault. And after awhile, I began to loose myself in the guilt. I was so angry with myself, all the time, and angry with everyone else, because I didn't want that kind of responsibility. I was afraid of it, afraid I wouldn't measure up, and more people would get hurt.

"Ban-chan rescued me from that. Because he is strong enough, and brave enough, to take responsibility for other people's lives and not get warped under the pressure, like I did. And the only person I really have to take care of is him, because he can deal with the other stuff, and because he doesn't really need anybody else but me."

The room was spinning now, and he would have spilled what little was left of his coffee if Adorlee hadn't taken the mug from his shaking hand.

"Be at ease, Ginji-kun. You have no need to say anything more. I understand. And I apologize. Try to sleep now, do."

He didn't need to be told twice. The window and the sofa and Adorlee were all slipping away into a hazy, comfortable gray mist, and he slid into a deep, dreamless sleep.

When next he awakened, he was lying in Adorlee's circular bed once again. His throat felt like it was on fire, and every breath he dragged through it rasped sickly in his lungs. As he struggled to sit up, a long-fingered hand appeared in front of his face. Ban jabbed his index finger into Ginji's forehead, and gently pushed him back down onto the bed.

"Stay down, dummy. You've been sick, remember?"

Ginji swatted the hand away and pushed himself upright. "How did I get up here, Ban-chan?

"Adorlee brought you up here when you fell asleep. Evidently she put some kind of sleeping drug in your coffee."

"Coffee?"

Ban scowled. "Yeah, you were drinking coffee while I was outside freezing my ass off. Remember?"

Ginji shook his head. "You went outside, and then I went to sleep. I don't remember drinking any coffee."

His partner's scowl dissolved into a less hostile frown. "You don't?"

Ginji shook his head. Ban stared at him for a moment, and then shrugged.

"We need to return to Japan," he said, changing subjects, "as soon as you're able. So rest up. If there are Praetors around, it won't be hard for the Inquisitors to find the people we associate with."

"Our friends," Ginji corrected.

Ban's nose went up in the air. "Associates."

Ginji stuck his tongue out.

"Boys," Adorlee chided gently from the doorway. "Let us say that there are individuals you would prefer not to see harmed, shall we?"

"They can have Monkey-boy." Ban made a dismissive motion with his hand. "Be doing me a favor."

"Ban-chan," Ginji said, slightly affronted.

"Alright, alright, you two," Adorlee cut in crossly. Both Get Backer's stared at her; she hadn't lost her cool before. At their incredulous expressions, she colored faintly. It was, Ginji thought, slightly shocked, actually pretty cute.

"We can return to Japan tomorrow, if Ginji-kun feels up to it. In the meantime, you should warn your colleagues about the dangers facing them."

"Have fun, Ginji," Ban said, tossing his cell at his partner.

"I thought you said to rest."

"Doesn't take much to make a phone call."

"But my throat hurts, Ban-chan." Ginji opened his eyes as wide as they would go, in an irresistible plea for mercy.

"Have a lozenge." His pitiless partner threw a cardboard package on the bed, with peculiar symbols that Ginji vaguely recognized as western-style letters.

"You're mean," Ginji said reproachfully.

"Just because you were dumb enough to get yourself sick doesn't mean you don't have to pull your fair share of the work around here, pal." Ban huffed and stalked off toward the door.

"But, Ban-chan, what are you going to be doing?"

"Important research."

Ginji looked helplessly to Adorlee, who spread her hands wide. "I am sorry, Ginji-kun, but I also have preparations to make, if we are going to be spending a significant amount of time in Japan." With that, she turned and followed Ban out the door.

Ginji glared at her retreating back, but nonetheless flipped open the phone and began to scroll through the Get Backers' many contacts.

* * *

"I thought you had important research to do, Ban-kun."

Ban's fingers flew over the remote, flipping between three or four different sitcoms. "Do you know how long it's been since I got to watch TV?"

She raised a brow, but said nothing.

"What kind of preparations did you have to make?" he asked, more to take the heat off himself than out of any kind of curiosity. TV was a rare luxury, and, after all, Ginji had spent the morning watching an old movie – why shouldn't he enjoy the comforts of Adorlee's home as well?

"There are several major investments I would prefer to be more liquid assets, considering the relative instability of our circumstances. I do not maintain an especially large account in Japan, so I needed to transfer some funds from my holdings here in France." She shrugged. "Dull finances, for the most part. Though I do have some more interesting plans for this evening."

Pretty, poised, intelligent, and rich. Pity they were related. Maybe he could get her interested in Ginji?

"What's tonight?"

She took her lower lip in her teeth, and sat beside him on the sofa. Reaching over him, she absently pressed the 'mute' button on the remote, ignoring his affronted sputtering.

Finally, she said, "I have come across a number of Praetors in my life, Ban-kun. Other than you and our grandmother, and myself, I know of no one who has survived such encounters.

"Tonight I hope to even the odds."

That interested him enough to look away from the television. He had debated with himself for over an hour what the best course of action would be, and had essentially come to the same conclusion she seemed to have arrived at; namely, that for the moment, forewarning those likely to be targeted was their only option.

"How exactly do you plan on doing that?"

"Golems," she said simply.

"Golems, plural?"

His disbelief must have been evident in his tone, because she shrugged and said, "There are benefits to being the Magus Excelsior, after all."

He shook his head. "Even if you had the capacity to create more than one at one summoning, you could never control them simultaneously for extended periods of time. The physical and mental drain would be phenomenal. Even you have only so much energy to spend – just getting to the hospital wore you out."

She smiled wryly. "That is, of course, the limiting factor for any witch – the amount of energy she or he can spend casting and maintaining spells. And as to that particular journey, I happened to be possessing _you_ at the time, and you were subconsciously fighting me every second. Navigating the shadows while keeping a firm hold on someone with your strength of will would have taxed Merlin."

"I don't understand how you intend to use golems as protectors, then. Maria always said they weren't worth the effort. That the energy costs are too high." Adorlee shifted so that she sat cross-legged and facing him on the sofa. The casual pose made him bite down on a smile, remembering her irritable chastisement earlier. She was loosening up.

"I think I have discovered a way around that particular difficulty." She bit the inside of a cheek thoughtfully. "A golem is typically intended as a guardian of some kind, correct?"

Ban cocked his head to one side, curious to see where she was going.

"I think I can modify them into simple votive figures – charms, if you will, that will alert me to the presence of a Praetor."

"Praetor-detectors."

She nodded. "In effect. However, with the basic incantations and structures already in place, I think I could transform such a figure into an ordinary golem with relative ease, should the need arise."

"So rather than waste your energy making golems for everyone, you give them a votive figure with the potential to become a golem, if necessary." He considered it and shook his head. "I still can't see it. The spellcasting just to make the damn things would sap you dry."

"Creating the votives would be difficult, I admit, because I would essentially be laying the plans for the entire summoning, but only activating it on a very superficial level. Maintaining them will cost me almost nothing, however."

"Can you do it?" he asked bluntly.

She hesitated, but said, "Yes."

Ban repressed a shudder. "You're a scary person," he said, grimacing.

She wiggled her fingers at him like a carnival magician, a curiously playful gesture from such a serious person. "Who, me? I am not."

She lay back into the sofa, more relaxed than he'd yet seen her. "According to my friend, the one whose coat you borrowed earlier, I am 'squishy.'"

The way she said the word, with a crinkle in her nose and a peculiar twist to her mouth, made him smile. "Squishy, huh?"

"It is a term generated from the role-playing game phenomenon, or so I am told."

The note of bemusement in her tone tipped him over the edge. He couldn't help himself; he laughed out loud. "I know what squishy means."

She laughed herself, though quietly. "Dork."

He sank into the sofa beside her. "At the hospital, you were able to borrow energy from me. Could you do that again?"

"I would be afraid to," she admitted. "I have never attempted to create more than one golem at a time, and certainly never prevented the full activation of the spell. It would be very easy to drain more energy from you than you could safely give."

"But you're sure you can do it."

"Yes."

"Safely?"

"I think so."

"You think?"

"I can do it," she said, more firmly. "It is the best solution to our little dilemma. I will manage."

She seemed confident enough, and though Ban wasn't quite satisfied, he let it pass.

* * *

The rest of the day passed quietly. Ginji successfully contacted everyone to warn them about the Inquisitors and the Praetors. So far, they had seen nothing out of the ordinary, and a few – Shido, most particularly – didn't quite seem to believe him. He did his best to make them understand the danger, but lacking any experience with the demons, he knew he hadn't sounded very convincing. A nagging worry occupied the back of his mind, but there was nothing to be done about it. He spent of the rest of the day in the den with Ban, watching TV. When he got tired, he went back to the round bed in Adorlee's bedroom and fell asleep.

Sometime after midnight, he woke covered in gooseflesh. A prickly, crawling sensation that started low in his back crept up his spine and raised the hairs on the back of his neck. He went to the window, finding himself oddly drawn to the star-spattered sky.

The clouds had cleared away, and the day's snowfall glittered in the chill light of a waning moon. The brick wall he had seen from the downstairs window evidently wrapped all the way around the manor; he could see it below, and Adorlee's bedroom was on the back side of the house. A break in the four inch pile of snow that sat atop the wall led his eyes to a wooden gate, where the snow had been brushed off. Not far beyond it, a grove of tall, bare trees huddled around an ice-covered pond. The shine of long, dark hair contrasted starkly with the snow-laden trees.

Staring incredulously at the pond, Ginji's eyes traveled up and down Adorlee's tiny frame. She was standing knee-deep in the frigid water, slender arms raised toward the moon and the trees above her. She seemed to be speaking, addressing the sky. A sheer white dress with long trumpet sleeves floated on the black water, where her footsteps had broken the ice. It looked like something from a movie, Ginji thought, transfixed by the witch in the water.

Shaking himself of the creepy-crawly feeling, he took hold of the window and forced it upward. Before he could shout down to her, to tell her to get out of the icy water and into the house, a murmur of words filled his ears, a murmur that slowly grew in both momentum and volume. He flinched as a single shrieked word rang through the still, white night.

Adorlee swayed uncertainly in the water, and then she fell.

He was in the window and prepared to jump when Ban's familiar form shot out from the back door, long legs racing to the white dress that was slowly being carried down under the shallow water of the pond.

Even as Ban sprinted across the lawn, however a large figure clad all in black rose from the water. Adorlee's limp body was cradled like a child in its arms.

Ban came to a sudden halt, skidding in the snow. He began to shout, in a language Ginji could not even identify, let alone understand, and Ginji leapt down from the window, racing toward his partner. He didn't have to understand what Ban was saying to recognize the hate and fear in his voice.

The big figure moved slowly out of the water and began to make its way toward Ban. Ginji's bare feet fell harder and faster on the snow. As Ginji drew up beside his partner, Ban's slew of foreign words cut off abruptly.

"It's no good, witchling," it said, its tone contemptuous. The voice was deep and as the figure came closer, Ginji could see that although it closely resembled a man, it was not quite human.

It was big, whatever it was. Tall and broad shouldered, heavily muscled, it towered over the Get Backers. Sharply pointed ears jutted from either side of its black hat, and shoulder length white hair spilled over the edge of its coat collar. Once again, Ginji had to shake away the surrealism before raising his fists beside his partner. He shivered as it spoke again, revealing sharp white canines.

"What good is that going to do, brat? Begone." The deep voice was hostile, but Ginji detected a distinct note of urgency in its tone. His eyes fell to the creatures gloved hands, which slowly, unconsciously tightened over Adorlee's limbs.

"Ban," he said slowly, watching the anxious clenching of the demon's fingers, "I don't think…"

"Denizen of hell," Ban spat, "release her!"

"No." The creature advanced a few more paces, until the Get Backers were forced to look up to meet its eyes. Ginji shuddered. Its eyes were a deep garnet.

"Which art thou?" Ban demanded, braced to fight. "Name thyself, demon!"

"I am not accountable to you, witchling," it answered, with that same contemptuousness in its voice. " Move. Or I will move you."

Ban pounced on the creature, so quickly that even Ginji, who was accustomed to Ban's sudden movements, could not see him. Before Ginji had grasped what had come to pass, Ban was on his hands and knees in the snow, ten feet away, his face twisted with such loathing as to be unrecognizable.

"Release her!"

The demon ignored him, and swept past Ginji and into the manor. Ginji looked helplessly at Ban, and took off after their hostess and her demonic captor.

The thing that would not name itself carried Adorlee up the stairs and into the green and white bathroom attached to her bedroom, with Ginji and Ban close on its heels. Ban had stopped talking.

The demon settled her onto the tiles. Ginji started as it pulled the hem of her dress up to her knees, revealing a mass of ugly scratches and cuts on her shins. It muttered something in a harsh, coarse language, and flung open one of the cabinet doors. Ginji bit his tongue, watching Ban, as it pulled a first aid kit from beneath the sink.

The room was silent as the creature removed its gloves and began to tend Adorlee's injuries, swabbing away the water-thinned blood that stained her legs. In the stillness, Ginji imagined he could hear Ascelpius writhing around his partner.

"Um," he said hesitantly, "could you please tell us who you are? You don't seem like you mean her any harm, but we don't know you, and we're worried about her too." The creature paused.

"Verrine," it said finally.

Ban looked shocked. "Verrine? Second throne?"

"She is a Magus Excelsior, after all," it replied irritably, resuming its ministrations.

Ginji tugged at Ban's shirt tail. "Throne?"

"A first sphere demon," Ban answered shortly. His eyes were troubled. "I've never heard of anyone summoning anything beyond the third sphere. And only a handful of witches could handle anything over an ordinary fallen angel."

"Angel?" Ginji asked, staring at the creature in disbelief. It turned to glare at him, and he darted behind his partner, who also glared at him.

"Some things are best forgotten," it said, baring its teeth. "It would be in your best interests to forget what you just heard."

"But she summoned you." Ban knelt beside the demon and reached for the bandages. It swatted his hand away. "To protect her, obviously. But a first sphere? How? And when? She wouldn't have needed your help against her own golems."

"She didn't intend to do it, and it doesn't matter now. It's done." It looked critically at its work, and reached to turn on the bathtub faucets.

"Why are you…?" Ginji pointed at the tub.

"I have to get her warm. Now go."

"I don't think so. I'll do it." Ban shifted so that he sat on his heels. From that position, Ginji thought with a wince, it would be a lot easier for Ban to get on his feet quickly.

"Not a chance, witchling." The creature got to its feet, staring down at Ban, who immediately rose himself.

"You are not undressing my sister." He stumbled over the unfamiliar word a little, and the stutter made him even more angry.

It laughed harshly. "I'm supposed to leave her with a man she's known all of two days?"

Ban didn't laugh. "I won't leave her with a demon."

"Um, Ban?" Ginji said hesitantly, "You did say he was supposed to protect her."

"Demons break their bindings. It was a very common way for witches to die during the middle ages. And none of them would have ever summoned a being as powerful as one of the Thrones."

It smiled an ugly, mirthless grin. "Untrue. Sonneillon was summoned once, on behalf of the Archduke Ferdinand." He said nothing more, but Ban paled, something Ginji had never seen before.

"Hate…" Ban muttered. He met the demon's red eyes with a cold blue stare. "And you're impatience. How are you planning on twisting her, when you free yourself? Just what do you have planned, huh?"

"A bath," it answered coldly, "to raise her body temperature. Preferably before she becomes hypothermic. Get out."

"I thought you didn't repeat yourself," Ban taunted.

"Stop it," Ginji heard himself say, and a pair of very hostile gazes landed on him. He tensed a little under their stares, but one look at the pale woman in Verrine's arms steeled his resolve. "Your disagreements need to wait until she's been taken care of."

Ban looked at him speculatively, and then turned his eyes back to the demon -- Verrine.

"You're ridiculous," Verrine snorted.

"It's better than risking her life while we discuss who's better suited to take care of her," Ban snapped.

Ginji was at a loss. "Um…"

Verrine's red stare turned on Ginji. "Don't fuck up, Lightning Lord."

"Ban-chan…" Ginji started weakly, "what?"

"Looks like you're going to have to do it, buddy," Ban said, not taking his eyes off the red-eyed monster. "He doesn't trust me, and I'm damn sure not going to let him to do it."

"B…b …but, but, Ban-chan…"

"Now who's wasting time?" The demon stood. "The witchling and I are leaving."

"But Ban-chan!" Ginji wailed.

"Just the dress, Ginji. You can leave on everything underneath the dress. But the dress is cold, and heavy, and defeats the purpose of a bath. Just take it off, and put her in the tub. That's all you have to do." He stood up too. "After you," he said snidely, gesturing to the monster.

It bared its teeth, but its eyes fixed on the pale woman on the floor, and it left without any further complaints. Ban followed it, leaving Ginji alone with the unconscious Adorlee.

"Adorlee-chan… I'm really sorry…" Ginji lifted her up gingerly in his arms. Fighting down a blush, he unfastened the back of her dress and slid it off of her shoulders, wincing as his hands brushed icy flesh. A delicately patterned bra did nothing to hide the pointed nipples of her breasts, and the further down the dress came, the more Ginji flushed.

"I'm really, really sorry," he mumbled, tugging the last of the heavy dress from her feet. Her panties disguised little more than her bra did, and he kept his eyes firmly focused on her face as he lifted her up and settled her into the warm bath.

Her breath came and went very slowly. Ginji sat beside the tub, not really sure what else he should do, other than make sure she didn't slip under the water. After a minute, he reached for her hand. Running a thumb over her knuckles, he started to talk to her.

He told her about Infinite Castle, and about the Four Kings. He told her about Natsumi, and how cute she was, and he told her about Paul's coffee and Ban's habit of driving between tractor-trailers on two-lane roads. Madoka's violin came up, as well as his thoughts on Juubei and Kazuki's relationship, his fear of Akabane Kuroudo, and what he suspected Ban felt for Himiko. And he told her that he really liked her, and he really hoped that the Get Backer's could trust her.

"Ginji." Adorlee's voice emerged as little more than a whisper. Her eyelids fluttered open, as if raising them was a tremendous effort.

"Adorlee-chan!" Ginji grinned. "You woke up!"

"Yes. Was… did Verrine make an appearance?"

"He's with Ban."

"Oh, no." She took a deep breath, and looked down at herself. "Ah." She colored, and that made Ginji blush too.

"I'm sorry, Adorlee-chan, they made me."

Her eyes began to fall closed again. "A… a robe?"

"You got it," Ginji promised. "Hey! Would one of you guys get her robe?" The stamping of feet answered him.

Adorlee had already fallen asleep.


	8. Facing Demons

The Get Backers belong to their creators. Not me.

**Facing Demons**

Ban and the demon called Verrine shared a hostile silence as Ginji prattled on about nothing in particular behind the closed bathroom door. When Ginji asked for Adorlee's robe, Verrine immediately went to the closet and withdrew a pale blue cotton affair with an A embroidered on the lapel. Ban opened the door, but only wide enough for the demon to pass the garment through. Verrine ignored the slight and returned to his position near the window.

"Ban-chan, the sheets." Ginji stuck his foot in the partially opened door and pulled it open, holding a robed, wet-headed, exhausted-looking Adorlee in his arms.

Ban turned the bedding down, and Ginji slipped the tiny girl into her bed. Her eyes had been open, but they fluttered shut the moment Ginji released her.

"She's safe now," Ban said lowly. "Isn't that your cue to hightail it back to Hell?"

"Safe?" The demon snorted. "She hasn't been safe since she threw her lot in with you at the hospital."

Ginji shushed them crossly. "Adorlee-chan is really tired."

"Indeed." Verrine walked away and Ban seethed inwardly, noting that the big black form somehow seemed not at all out of place in Adorlee's black-and-white bedroom. The demon had obviously been there many times before.

Verrine led them into the parlor downstairs, but he did not sit. Ban chose to stand as well, but Ginji sprawled into an easy chair.

Crossing his arms, Ban fixed his stare on Verrine's red eyes. "Tell me how my sister managed to summon the second throne."

Verrine bared his teeth. "I told you. It was unintentional."

Ginji suddenly leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands. "You care about her an awful lot, don't you, Demon-san?"

The red-eyed monster blinked, but Ban couldn't tell if it was the odd address or the odder remark that had knocked him off-balance. "I am Verrine," he said finally, and then, "Adorlee St. Julian is my mistress. I am bound to defend her."

"But you were worried about her," Ginji insisted.

Ban watched the two with interest, but held his peace. Ginji had unusual insights about people, and Ban generally took his lead about such things, though he would never admit to it.

Still, it was a _throne_, after all, and Verrine had already admitted that another summoning – that of Sonneillon, the throne associated with hate – had been responsible for the events that sparked World War Two. The second throne was associated with impatience, and Ban's imagination balked at the terrible things that the demon could put into play if ever he were to break his ties to Adorlee.

"Don't talk about things you don't understand, little eel." But even as he spoke, there was a tightening in the creature's mouth and eyes that proved that Ginji's observation had struck a nerve.

Silently thanking the gods that Ginji had a better feel for people (and apparently demons) than he did, he decided to play nice for while longer. For the moment, they were on the same side.

"She did finish the golems, didn't she," he said, looking at the demon. "The spellcasting took everything she had, but she finished them."

Verrine's scowl deepened. "The votives are complete. Though there would have been no need for them, or for her current fatigue, if she had taken my advice and kept well away from you, witchling."

"It's Midou Ban-sama to you, _Demon-san_," Ban corrected, with a glower of his own.

"She wanted to go to Japan tomorrow," Ginji inserted hastily, throwing an uneasy look between the two. "I don't think she'll feel up to it. Do you?" Ban's partner captured both his and the demon's gazes, forcing them to break off their argument.

"She's stronger than that." Verrine's low grumble of a voice rose sharply. "She is the Magus Excelsior. If she said she would be ready tomorrow, she will be."

"And here I thought you didn't want her to have anything to do with us." Ban dug for a cigarette, watching the demon.

"I didn't." Verrine's mouth twisted hatefully, showing a flash of his too-sharp canines. "But like or not, she is involved, now. The Inquisitors won't forget that it was she who kept them from using Amano to get to you."

"Ban-chan?" Ginji sounded confused, and Ban glared at the demon.

He and Adorlee hadn't told Ginji about the votary at the hospital, and he wanted to keep it that way. To his surprise, a flash of understanding lit the red eyes, and the demon shifted his stare to Ginji.

"She discovered that they meant to attack you and thwarted them."

Ban's insides clenched. It was true, of course; Verrine hadn't _lied_. But the way he said it proved how deceptive he was, that Ginji's encounter with death could brushed off as nothing more than a foiled plan.

Perhaps it was Verrine who had taught Adorlee how to avoid the truth so convincingly.

"Was it the Inquisitors?" Ban asked bluntly, changing the subject. "Was she… with them… when she summoned you?"

Verrine's eyes had gone hard, but he evidently decided it wasn't worth arguing about, now that Ban had guessed.

"She was captured a second time, after her instructor died. Briefly. They didn't bother with torture, that time; she had grown too powerful, she might have been able to resist them. After all the blood, they were finally going to kill her." The demon's voice throbbed with hatred and resentment, and it stung Ban to realize how deeply those sentiments resonated with his own feelings.

For all her powerful magic and for all the similarity between them, Adorlee was unlike him in that she was small and physically vulnerable, and the idea of anyone having deliberately hurt her roused dangerous, ugly desires within him.

Verrine was watching him with the same curious suspicion with which he had regarded the demon.

"Here." Verrine reached into his black coat and withdrew six stone figurines, vaguely human in shape, but lacking faces. He proffered them, but just as Ban reached for them, he pulled them back. "Or perhaps I should deliver them."

Ban frowned and would have disagreed, but Ginji beat him to it.

"That would be great, Demon-san! I didn't think anybody believed me about the Inquisitors, but if they saw you…" His voice trailed off as the demon raised his eyebrows.

Ginji shrank back against his chair a little. "I mean, Adorlee-chan would probably want her Praetor-detectors to be used as soon as possible, right? Otherwise, she would have gotten all tired out for nothing."

Ban bit his tongue so hard that he drew blood. He would have liked to have interjected a smart remark, but the truth was, Ginji was right. The others probably would be more alert to the danger, having encountered Verrine and his delivery of votive-golems. "Do you know where to take them?" Ban asked instead.

"Adorlee was quite thorough in her research. Yes, I know." The demon smiled bleakly. "She even suggested the weaker ones should go to Mujenjou; she believed they would be better protected there."

Ginji shook his head. "You'll never convince them to do that – Shido wouldn't ever take Madoka there. And Paul wouldn't allow Rena or Natsumi-chan to go there, either."

"What's waiting for them outside the fortress is much worse that which lies within." Verrine shrugged. "But there's no help for fools."

Ban swore; Mujenjou was a good solution – he'd already considered it, but like Ginji, had assumed that it would be impossible to convince anyone else that standing together in the castle would be safer than walking the streets of Shinjuku alone.

Ban sighed in resignation. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to do it the hard way?"

The demon smiled suddenly, wickedly. "I could probably be persuaded."

"Ban-chan," Ginji started, jumping up out of his chair.

"Take them straight to MakubeX."

"I knew that already, witchling," Verrine growled.

"Ban-chan," Ginji said, the horror of realization spreading across his face, "you can't kidnap our friends!"

"I won't be."

"He won't be." Verrine and Ban spoke together. An uncomfortable silence filled the room for a moment.

"With MakubeX's cameras, surrounded by your former gang, Natsumi and Hevn and everyone else will be a lot safer. And the golems will be more useful together than separate. It's the best way, Ginji." Ban had been holding a cigarette; he lit up and took a long drag.

Ginji hung his head.

"Please take care of them, Demon-san." His voice was very quiet. "They're my friends."

"It's Verrine, for the last time. And there isn't a Praetor in existence that could get through me."

Then he disappeared into thin air.

"I really, really don't like that guy," Ban muttered, and Ginji raised his shoulders sympathetically.

"You really don't like Shido either, but he's a good guy," Ginji said, his tone philosophical.

"He's too unevolved to know the difference between bad and good." Ban snorted. "That thing's a lot more dangerous than Fuyuki Shido."

"You're so mean." Ginji smiled. "I think you're right, though – about Verrine, not about Shido being unevolved. I don't think I would want to meet him in a dark alley."

Ban sank into a chair next to the one Ginji had abandoned, and Ginji resumed his seat beside his partner.

"Ban-chan?"

Ban mumbled an acknowledgement around his cigarette.

"What is a throne? You tried to explain it earlier, but…" He shrugged.

Ban blew out a breath of smoke, thinking.

"Well, Christians used to see Heaven and Hell as being divided into separate spheres, or realms. Lucifer, one of the angels of the first sphere, or the most holy realm in Heaven, betrayed God. War broke out, and a lot of angels from different spheres took Lucifer's side. Lucifer lost and became 'the Devil.' The angels who had followed him got kicked out of Heaven."

Ginji looked a little sad, and Ban laughed outright. "You are _not_ feeling sorry for the Devil, Ginji. Even you have to draw a line somewhere."

"I wasn't feeling sorry for the Devil," Ginji replied defensively. "I was thinking about Verrine. That's harsh, for one bad choice."

Ban shrugged. "At any rate, in the first sphere, there were three orders of angels: seraphim, cherubim, and thrones. The thrones were supposed to be dispensers of God's justice, living symbols of His authority. When the angels who betrayed God were cast out from Heaven, they retained their rank in Hell."

"So the most powerful angels became the most powerful devils," Ginji surmised. "Which means that fallen thrones are really strong."

"Exactly." Ban's cigarette died; he ground it out in a potted plant. "And Verrine ranks second in a group of about ten thrones that deserted God."

Ginji looked up the stairs. "It must have been really bad, Ban-chan."

"Mmm?"

"For Adorlee to accidentally summon Verrine. She isn't the type to make that kind of mistake. It makes me think she wasn't really in control of herself, like she just... I don't know... threw everything she had into calling somebody, anybody, to help her. So it had to be really bad."

Ban looked at the ground. Ginji understood more than his partner gave him credit for, somehow intuitively grasping the desperation that must have fueled the summoning.

"I think you're probably right, Ginji." He yawned broadly and stretched. "We should get some sleep. I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, but I'd just as soon we be at the top of our game regardless."

Ginji nodded his agreement and turned to walk away, coughing into his hand as he did so. Ban gave him a wry smile. "Speaking of that. How're you feeling?"

"Feels like a cold, Ban-chan. I'm alright." Ginji waved his hands in front of himself, dismissing Ban's question.

"Let me know if it gets worse."

"Mmm."

In a better humor, now that Verrine had departed, Ban ruffled his partner's hair. "I'm going to crash on the couch – you sleep in the den upstairs. If you need anything, you know where to find me."

* * *

Unfortunately, though Ban settled into slumber quickly enough for once, sleep eluded Ginji. The image of Adorlee up to her knees in the frigid water outside haunted him, and he wondered if the questions that puzzled him were also bothering Ban.

Like why Adorlee-chan had chosen to wear that silly dress, rather than dressing appropriately for the weather. He was willing to believe that being outside, and even standing in the water were part of the magic – he didn't know enough about it to discount the possibility, anyway – but did she really have to freeze? And what of the cuts and scrapes all over her shins? It seemed as if she hadn't bothered to break the surface of the frozen pond before plunging into it, just waded right in, ignoring the jagged, broken ice.

Verrine had been most upset over those injuries. Was it because they could have been so easily avoided?

Besides all of that, when Ban had told him about the golems, he had been concerned that she wouldn't have enough strength to do it. She had seemed a little doubtful herself, he said. If she had been unsure, she should have asked one of the Get Backers to wait up for her, to make sure that she was safe. Either of them would have been happy to do it – didn't she know?

Pride could make a person do all sorts of peculiar things. Ginji understood that well, having partnered with Ban for so long. But he didn't think Adorlee's ego had motivated her careless treatment of herself.

To Ginji, such negligence smacked of self-loathing, or at the very least, a dangerous indifference toward one's own well-being.

She drove herself to the brink for Ban, for him, and for their friends – whom she didn't even know. Yet she had seemed unwilling to exert the slightest effort on her own behalf.

Could someone really count themselves so cheaply?

Well, Ginji promised himself, if she won't take care of herself, Ban-chan and I will have to do it.

The resolution calmed his troubled thoughts. Faint, disjointed images of Mujenjou, of the Honky Tonk, and of his friends began to intrude in his mind, and he fell into a dreamy, comfortable doze that verged on true sleep.

And then Adorlee screamed, and for the second time that night, Ginji was jolted out of his dreams and into the even more bizarre reality that had become his life.

He shot out of bed and raced down the hallway. Ban met him at the top of the stairs, wild-eyed with the shock of a rudely interrupted sleep. Together they crashed through Adorlee's door.

She writhed madly in her bed, twisting the bedclothes into a hopeless jumble about her limbs. Her arms were crossed over her chest, fingers curled like claws over her robe, raking down the sleeves until her hands met. Ugly red scratches appeared on her hands and wrists, and then she reached for her face.

"Don't look her in the eye!" Ban vaulted over the sofa to catch her hands before she could further injure herself. Holding her diminutive, now-bloody wrists firm in his right had, he knelt beside her and shook her with his left in an attempt to wake her. Ginji started toward the siblings, only to fall back in astonishment.

Ban tumbled to the floor as if thrown, as if an invisible hand had suddenly taken hold of him. He did not relinquish his grip on Adorlee, and so she fell atop him, moaning and whimpering, still trapped within her torturous dream.

Ginji sprang to their side, but mid-leap, the invisible hand that had flung his partner to the ground grabbed him about the throat, and hauled him a clear two feet off the floor.

Wrapping his hands about his attacker's wrist, Ginji cringed, finding the invisible flesh cold and bumpy to the touch, like that of a toad.

"Ginji!" Ban cursed. Still restraining Adorlee, he snaked out a leg, and Ginji's unseen assailant released him. Ginji dropped to the floor with a heavy thud; a second thud indicated that Ban had succeeded in tripping the intruder.

The attacker evidently didn't appreciate the interference, because it fell upon Ban, who was forced to let loose Adorlee's hands as it pummeled him about the head and shoulders. He had been on his back on the floor; both legs thrust upward together to force his opponent back. It must have hit the wall, because a goodly number of Adorlee's black-and-white photographs clattered to the floor, shattering.

"Ginji, take her!" Ginji pushed himself toward Adorlee, who had renewed her self-abuse, gouging at her flesh once again. He hauled her into his embrace and sat upright behind her, pulling her arms across one another over her belly, gripping her left hand tightly with his right, her right with his left.

"Adorlee-chan, please, wake up!" he begged her, squeezing her fingers tightly.

Meanwhile, Ban had charged at the wall with the photographs, cursing vilely when his bare feet found bits of broken glass. The invisible enemy laid a heavy blow across Ban's jaw and sent him flying into the sofa, which fell onto its back with the impact. Ban scrambled to his feet.

Ginji wanted to help his partner, but couldn't leave Adorlee. "Wake up, Adorlee-chan, please, wake up!"

"Ginji! Don't look in her eyes!"

Even as he spoke, Adorlee's eyes burst open. Ginji saw only the flash of her dark lashes, however, and turned his face into her honey-colored hair. Her efforts to free herself became more focused and more violent, but he tightened his hold on her.

The thing had renewed its assault on Ban, who seemed to be having better luck landing blows than he was avoiding them.

An awful hissing sound split the night, and Ginji shuddered as Ban, once again, sprawled inelegantly on the floor. The enemy hoisted him into the air and would have thrown him, but for Ban's incredible strength. Ban had managed to Snake Bite some portion or other of the thing's anatomy, and they fell together. The invisible attacker got the upper hand, and Ban's eyes bulged as it tightened its grip around his neck. His left hand remained at his throat, fighting with the creature's grip; his right sought his opponent's neck.

"Ginji?" Adorlee's struggles suddenly ceased, and she sagged against him.

"Are you okay?" He released her, and she stumbled to her feet. "I've got to help Ban-chan!"

Watching Adorlee out of one eye, he plunged into the fight. He fell over what should have been his target's back and was thrown off by thick, leathery flaps of skin that could only be wings, and ended up on the floor beside his partner, still half-watching Adorlee.

The girl staggered to her bed and stripped it of its bedding, exhaustion making her sluggish. Snatching the corner of the flat sheet, she bunched it in her hand, and then with other hand did the same to an adjacent corner. She flung the sheet into the air, settling it over the invisible creature and Ban.

Beneath the thin fabric, it was easy to make out the shape of wings, and a disturbingly distorted head. Ginji kicked a wing hard, hoping it was as fragile as it looked beneath the sheet. The crunch of breaking bone gratified him, and the thing let loose with an evil howl.

"Nice, Ginji," Ban congratulated him, swinging his right hand down onto the creature's oddly formed skull.

"Ban-kun, its amulet… You must retrieve the amulet… from its neck." Adorlee slumped against the bed, grey-faced with fatigue.

Now that they had a shape to work with, the odds had evened out, and the Get Backers renewed their efforts. Ginji tackled the creature from behind, pinning its arms to its side. They toppled over, and Ban smashed a heavy fist into their attacker's head a second time.

"Gin-kun, Ban-kun… the amulet… I can send it back..."

"The hell you can."

Both Get Backers started as Verrine's deep voice rumbled through Adorlee's bedroom.

The ugly hissing became faster, almost desperate, and the thing finally managed to shed its burden of bed linens and Get Backers. The heavy, uneven fall of its footsteps ended abruptly as Verrine's gloved hand shot out and closed around what appeared to be empty air.

Evidently, he could see what the Get Backers could not. He brought his hand, and presumably the creature, close to his face.

"Begone."

The hissing died away, and Verrine's fingers closed together in a fist.

"Idiot." Verrine growled – not a Ban-chan growl, that was really more of an irritated rumble in his throat, but a veritable growl, primitive and feral. "Another spell like that could have killed you."

Adorlee's eyes drooped. "You underestimate me… as always."

Verrine growled again, and this time he did sound like Ban-chan, irritated and just a little concerned. "You should have called for me."

"What was that thing?" Ginji demanded.

"An incubus. A demon that can invoke nightmares." Verrine looked at Adorlee's bloody hands. "The burns?"

She dropped her head forward, once, in affirmation.

Ginji looked at Ban's red, blistered hands. The scuffle with the... whatever it was... had caused them to bleed. He flushed guiltily.

"Why are you back?" Ban put in. He righted the sofa and perched on an arm, glowering at the demon all the while.

For answer, the demon held up a ragged piece of cloth that had been drenched in blood. A bandana.

"Shido!" Ginji gasped.

Ban cursed.

"The Beast-Master isn't dead. None of them are. They are with MakubeX, in Mujenjou. I dealt with the Praetor." His garnet eyes narrowed. "But there will be others." He went to Adorlee. Gathering the tiny girl up in his arms, he restored her to her bed.

Ginji wordlessly retrieved the comforter and handed it to Verrine, who settled it over his mistress.

"So," Adorlee whispered, her voice barely audible, "it has begun."


End file.
